Why We Don't Touch Mysterious Alien Eggs
by CooperTrooperSG1
Summary: It's a kidfic. Maybe the world didn't need another one, but I always like them!
1. Chapter 1

Title: Why We Don't Touch Mysterious Alien Eggs

Rating: K+

Author: CooperTrooperSG1

Setting: Anytime pre-season 8, but obviously not 6

Author's Notes: This is another story that was sitting abandoned for over a year. Personally I love stories that involve children, new children or SG-1 members as children. I know there are lots of them out there... but this one's mine! I think I have about seven or eight chapters' worth done already, once I go through and start splitting it up. I will try to finish this up this summer. I hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading.

Ch 1

Colonel Jack O'Neill glanced at his watch for the tenth time that hour. His team was due back from their "uneventful exploratory mission" in five minutes now… but he had plenty of experience with SG-1 over the past seven years - most of it under his own command of course - with just how dangerous those apparently peaceful missions could turn. Plus, he had missed his three best friends on the forty-eight hour trip and had to live through them vicariously these days, as he was still recovering from knee surgery and Janet hadn't given him the all-clear to go back into the field yet. He felt she was being entirely unreasonable about this. After all, he had argued before the rest of his team had left on this very mission, himself at 80 percent was still nothing to sneeze at. She hadn't been impressed by his argument or his lack of modesty and he'd remained benched… benched and bored.

Glad that Hammond had at least agreed not to send his team anywhere inhabited or otherwise remotely dangerous without him, he went to the control room to meet his team on their way in, hoping they'd all be walking through the gate uninjured. He nodded a greeting to General Hammond, who was waiting to greet the returning team as well. Right on schedule, the wormhole engaged, the iris went up automatically, Walter alerted him and the rest of the base to the incoming wormhole from his chair by the window, SG-1's signal was received, the iris opened, and his team given the signal to come through.

The MALP they'd taken preceded them, and it was more than a little muddy. Jack heard Hammond groan as it left a trail of mud on the ramp and several chunks of dried clumps of mud were shaken loose off of it as well. His team followed, not quite as muddy but definitely less than squeaky clean, his 2IC, Major Sam Carter, steering the MALP by remote and smiling at him at once to indicate all had gone well. Apparently she was unaware of the smudge of mud on her left cheek.

Wanting to contain the mess as much as possible, Jack hurried to the gate room to meet them and got there just as they finished piling their packs and weapons on the MALP. Daniel was trying to brush caking mud off his pants, and as Jack approached he saw the younger man make a move to wipe his boots off on the edge of the ramp. "Ack! Don't even think about it, Danny!" Jack ordered sharply.

Daniel froze with his leg partly raised and lowered it reluctantly after seeing the look on Jack's face.

"Major, give me a good reason why I shouldn't be having the nice SF's in the hall go bring you three mops and buckets to clean up the mess you just made of our lovely gate room," Jack said, knowing she would understand that he wasn't really serious in the unusual way he'd phrased his request for a quick mission report. He heard Hammond join him, and saw that he looked similarly curious about their messy state.

"Well, sir, we did find several interesting things… including of course the fact that it rained all night long and made our trek back to the gate much muddier than we normally like. Daniel found plenty of historical writings on the ruins 20 clicks from the gate, and I found something that could be useful."

"Weapons?" he asked hopefully.

"I…I'm not sure yet, sir. It's some sort of technology but I couldn't get it open in the field, and I want to run it through the mass spec…"

Jack held up a hand. "Okay, save the geek report for later."

"Yes, please do, Major," Hammond interrupted, taking over. "All of you report to the infirmary for your post-ops, then get clean before you debrief me."

"So, in other words, debrief yourselves before you debrief the General," Jack contributed, earning a quickly-stifled laugh from his 2IC, an eye-roll from Daniel, and a look of impatience from Hammond. Teal'c pretended not to have heard the remark at all.

After the General was a few yards away from them, Daniel muttered, "Boy, _you're _in a good mood today, Jack."

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

An hour later, he and his team were gathered around the conference table waiting for the General to join them. Daniel was attempting to fill the silence by telling Jack every boring detail of what he had missed, launching into an explanation of the ruins he had already begun deciphering. Jack listened enough to know that Daniel hadn't actually made much progress and decided to wait for the condensed, final version. Tuning the archaeologist out, he focused on his coffee instead.

"Great, Spacemonkey," Jack interrupted after letting Daniel ramble for a good ten minutes. "Now it's Carter's turn. What's in the bag, Carter, new doohickey?" he asked, indicating the duffel bag she'd brought in with her, which was now resting at her feet.

She reached for the bag eagerly; clearly she'd been itching to show him whatever was inside.

"Yes, sir. I haven't had time to run any more tests on it yet, obviously, but I thought you'd like to see…" she pulled out what looked like a giant egg.

Slightly larger than an ostrich egg, it looked like it was made out of gold. It appeared to have a hinge of some sort, as a seam ran all around it, making it look like the world's biggest Easter egg. "Wow, I'd hate the bird that laid that baby to bullseye _my _truck!"

Carter gave a smile and was about to answer when Daniel interrupted, exclaimed, "Hey! It's a Triwizard clue!"

Everyone stared at him blankly. Daniel looked sheepish and explained, "I didn't see it before; I was busy with the artifacts and Teal'c was helping Sam… it just… it looks like the clue for the second Triwizard task, that's all."

Jack turned to his 2IC for an explanation, but it was Teal'c who answered. "He is referring to 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,' O'Neill."

"Er… right," Jack said after a moment of digesting this news. After all, while there probably weren't a whole lot of books Daniel _hadn't _read, Jack found it harder to picture the mighty Jaffa warrior staying up late at night to read Harry Potter. Then again, the man did love his Star Wars… "Well… assuming that's _not _what it actually is, Carter, any ideas?"

"Plenty! It was giving off some faint energy readings, sort of like when your laptop is hibernating, sir, and I can't get it open, so it might have some sort of electromagnetic lock or…"

"Okay. Why don't you fill me in after you get a chance to play with it," O'Neill concluded.

She nodded and reached for the carafe to refill her coffee mug. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Daniel suggested quietly, "Still, it couldn't hurt to try taking a bath with it, Sam."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jack was just about to head home for the night. There was just one more thing he needed to do before he left… kick out his two favorite geeks. He would have bet anything the two were still where they'd been last time he'd seen them - heads huddled over the golden egg thing in Carter's office, poking and prodding at it with various things while Carter used Daniel for a sounding board of ideas and Daniel offered suggestions for how it could fit in with the purpose of the building he had been exploring on the planet.

He would also be very surprised if the two of them weren't well on their way to drinking their weight in coffee for the evening as well.

Personally, he had some doubts as to the usefulness of the device. It looked weird, sure, but he couldn't fathom why anyone would make anything potentially invaluable to Earth's defenses, or offenses, or anything else in between, shaped like an egg of all things. His first instinct - that maybe it was just their alien equivalent of a football or something - was looking more and more appealing to him as he headed down the familiar corridor to his 2IC's lab.

"Okay, campers, it's way past your bedtimes!" he declared as he entered, clapping his hands together loudly before he realized there was nobody in the lab.

The egg thing lay on the work table in the middle of the room. And it was open, a mess of wires and crystals poking out of it, some of which were decidedly alien, some of which definitely belonged to his missing Second.

As he went around the table to see if she'd left any indication of where they might have gone on her laptop, which was open a foot away from the egg, his foot nudged something on the floor. He looked down in surprise, then groaned as his heart rate doubled.

They still had their heads huddled together, all right. Only they appeared to be sound asleep on the floor. And, he concluded as he bent over to look at them more closely in the dimly lit room. They couldn't have been past the age of kindergarten.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	2. Chapter 2

2

"Crap," Jack muttered, staring down at the two sleeping figures. BDU's hanging off of them like blankets, their boots had already fallen off and lay haphazardly under the table. He crouched down next to them, his knees creaking in protest. He felt their pulses carefully, and once he felt the strong, if slightly fast beats beneath his fingers, allowed himself a moment to be amazed at the sight in front of him.

He had a feeling he would know both of them anywhere, even if the circumstances of finding them in Carter's lab, in their now over-large BDU's wasn't a dead giveaway.

Daniel's hair looked like it had when they'd first brought him back from Abydos - long, with a lot more blonde highlights mixed in with the otherwise sandy hair. His glasses, no doubt way too big now, were hanging off one ear. Jack removed them carefully and pocketed them for safekeeping, wondering how old Daniel had been when he'd first needed them. And, Jack had to admit, the sleeping little boy was absolutely adorable.

Equally cute, he had less trouble admitting, was the little girl curled up next to him. It was harder to see her face because she was on her side and her face was mostly hidden by a messy mass of wispy looking platinum hair that probably reached about her shoulders, although it was hard to tell from her current position. She was smaller than Daniel, and looked cold, curled up in a tight little ball and snuggled close to the warm body next to her for warmth.

He reached out to her instinctively because she looked so tiny and miserable there on the cold hard floor, and picked her up carefully. She didn't stir at all, as limp as a rag doll, as he moved her. He shifted her till he could hold her securely with one arm and then scooped up Daniel too, securing him against the other shoulder and getting up with a slight groan. Okay, so maybe his knee _wasn't _quite as good as new yet, he thought to himself.

He groaned as he felt someone's pants and maybe a sock slide off the now tiny bodies of his teammates as he stood up straight with them, but decided getting them both to Janet took priority at the moment.

By the time he got them to the almost-empty infirmary, he knew they were both down to their overlarge tee-shirts, but hadn't exactly been able to stop and pick up discarded clothing with his arms full of sleeping children.

Luckily, he knew Fraiser was spending the night on base because the Lieutenant on SG-9 was still recovering from abdominal surgery from a couple days ago. He knocked loudly on the door to her office with the toe of his boot, knowing she often slept on a cot in there.

Sure enough, a few moments later she opened the door sleepily. "Colonel O'Neill? What… oh my God. Where on Earth did those children come from?" she demanded, waking up instantly.

"Well, Doc, I'd have thought they covered that in medical school, but all right… see, when two people love each other, sometimes they…"

"Colonel, I will not hesitate to give you unnecessary booster shots," she deadpanned.

"Yes, ma'am." He swallowed and said, "Well, here's the thing. My two favorite scientists… are now apparently my two favorite _little _scientists."

Eyes widening, she brushed the nearest child's hair out of their face and studied it closely. It was hard - the boy was asleep, his cheek smushed against O'Neill's shoulder, but there was definitely some resemblance…

"Here, help me put them down, and look at them properly," Jack instructed.

She nodded and took the sleeping boy from him and carried him to the nearest bed, laying him down gently on his back. She turned on a nearby lamp so the room was more well-lit and studied the little boy's face while she checked his vitals. That done, she turned to Jack, who was standing at the foot of the bed, still holding the sleeping little girl. "Um, sir, you want to put her down on the next bed?" she prompted.

"Oh, yeah." He did as instructed, covering her tightly with a blanket. Janet nudged him out of the way and had to pull the blanket loose again to examine the sleeping girl. Jack pulled a chair out and sat down in between the two beds, looking back and forth between them and frowning. "They were playing with that damn egg," he offered after a few moments.

"Well, whatever happened, they seem okay - just deeply asleep. I'll have to run a lot more tests of course, but I'm inclined to agree with you. I've seen pictures of Sam at about this age and this certainly looks like her. And that one has a birthmark on his underarm exactly where Daniel does, so… I'll have to run DNA and everything else I can think of to figure out what happened and if they're okay but I think you're right, sir. This appears to be Daniel and Sam." She sighed and said, "I'll go call General Hammond."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jack was fighting sleep himself when one of his little teammates stirred. The little girl sat up a bit clumsily, rubbing her eyes sleepily and looking around. Jack watched hopefully, hoping she'd recognize where she was and still be his regular 2IC on the inside, if not on the outside. As he saw her wake, however, he noticed panic starting to set in, the sort of panic that only small children can adequately convey in an expression when they wake up in unfamiliar surroundings. Knowing what usually came next, he said quickly and quietly, in what he hoped was a friendly voice, "Hey, Carter."

She looked at him in surprise, her eyes looking somehow bigger and bluer than usual on the little face, which still had some remnants of babyhood even though she looked about three, in his estimation. "Sam," he corrected himself quickly. "Your name's Sam, right?"

She nodded warily and asked, "Are you a doc-tor?"

He laughed. "Nope. Definitely not a doctor."

"You're a soldier man," she said, leaning over to touch the insignia on the shoulder of his uniform. "My dad has these same ones."

"Your dad's a Colonel," he concluded, confirming in his mind that she was still Sam Carter, just apparently Sam Carter rewound about thirty years.

She nodded. "Is he here?"

"No, sorry, Carter… Sam. But um, I'm a friend of his!"

She looked at him suspiciously. "You are?"

"Oh sure. Me and Jake go _way _back. Listen, I need to ask you some questions now, okay?"

"Who's that?" she asked, ignoring him and pointing to Daniel, whom she had just spotted.

"That's Daniel."

"Are you his Daddy?" she asked.

"No!" he said quickly, startling her a bit. "He's, uh, another friend. He's your friend too."

"Oh," she said, apparently accepting that for the moment.

Before she could ask him another question, he turned the tables, wanting to get as much information from her as possible before Janet rejoined them, because he was sure the doctor's questions - and exam - would be much more invasive. "How old are you?"

"Four. Hw old are you?" she countered.

He groaned. "More than four."

"More than a hundred?"

"No. but Teal'c is more than a hundred."

"Who?" she asked eagerly.

"Another friend. Never mind. Listen, Sam, do you remember what you were doing right before you woke up here?"

She stared at him for a minute and said, "Well… I guess I was sleeping. I mean, I don't _remember _sleeping but I remember waking up and you can't wake up unless you've been asleep so I musta been sleeping," she concluded proudly, crossing her arms and looking at him hopefully. "Did I get it right?"

He chuckled, despite himself. Apparently even at four her reasoning skills were top notch and she could talk circles around him. "Yes, that's right. But… do you remember anything else?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I don't think I ever been here before so somebody musta moved me when I was sleeping. My mommy says I can sleep through tornadoes!" she said proudly.

He laughed. "Well, okay, then. So…"

"Is Mommy here? Why am I at the doctor? Am I sick? If I'm sick I want my mommy before you give me any shots!"

"Shhh," Jack said quickly, glancing nervously at Daniel's sleeping form. "You're not sick, Sam. At least, I don't think you are. The doctor is going to want to check for sure though, just in case, but that can wait a little while, okay?"

"What about my mommy?" she asked immediately.

"She's… she's not here. I'm sorry."

"Are you babysitting me?"

Realizing that might be the best way to get her to cooperate, he nodded. "Yes. Your parents… had to go somewhere unexpectedly, so your dad asked me to watch you."

"Oh." She studied him for a moment and said, "Okay. Then can I have something to drink please? I'm thirsty."

"Sure," Jack said, wheeling his chair over to the sink and filling a disposable cup with water. He brought it back to her.

She took it and looked at it with a slight frown. "I _really _like chocolate milk a lot better," she said hopefully, giving him a big-eyed look that was just about impossible to resist.

Despite himself, he was about two seconds from giving in and hunting down some chocolate milk in the middle of the night when Janet came in, having heard their conversation. "Hey, Sam," she smiled at the little girl, pulling out her penlight.

Sam's eyes flicked from the doctor's coat to the stethoscope around her neck and she cringed. "H-hi. I'm not sick! He said so," she said, pointing to Jack. "What's your name anyway? You never said."

"I'm Jack. Jack O'Neill."

"And you're a Colonel like my Dad."

"Yup."

"Then I'm supposed to call you 'Colonel O'Neill,'" she said carefully, remembering the rules her father had taught her.

Jack rolled his eyes. "For cryin' out loud… you're four years old, Carter, you don't have to call me Colonel O'Neill!"

"Why do you keep on calling me my last name?"

"I… never mind, Sam. Look, your dad won't care if you call me Jack."

"Yes, he will," Sam argued with conviction.

"I have to agree with Sam on this one, Colonel," Janet said, with a suggestive hint to her voice to suggest she wasn't exactly talking about only this context.

"Watch it," Jack growled.

"But Colonel O'Neill, Daddy said…"

"Okay," he relented, giving up. Arguing with a four year old, he quickly remembered, was never easy. "You can just call me 'Colonel.' you don't have to say 'Colonel O'Neill' all the time."

She thought for a moment and then said, "Okay, Colonel" before saluting him with a grin.

He laughed. Janet took advantage of Sam's distraction to start examining her, listening to her chest again with the stethoscope and taking her temperature, then her pulse. "I went to the doctor before school started and got lots of shots," Sam said quickly, once the routine parts of the external exam were over. "I don't need any more!"

"You go to school already?" Janet asked curiously.

Sam nodded. "I'm in kindergarten. I was _supposed _to be in first grade but Mark threw a fit because he didn't want me in the same grade as him, and Mommy said I didn't have to go to school at all yet, but Daddy said I could go to kindergarten if I wanted and go to a special class that would be almost just _like _first grade…"

"Wow," Janet said. "Well, then I won't have to give you lots of shots. But I might have to do a couple, because we need to make sure that you're okay. We… think you might have caught something contagious and we just want to make sure you didn't."

Sam thought for a moment and asked, "Can I help then? I want to do the wet cotton ball part by myself. And if I don't cry, I want a lollipop. A _green _one," she stipulated.

Jack was laughing quietly, enjoying this bossy side of his 2IC ordering Janet around in her own infirmary. As Janet, who seemed flummoxed, started trying to explain that she didn't have any lollipops, Jack interrupted, scooting his chair back up to the side of the bed. "Hey, Sam? We're fresh out of green lollipops, but I bet I can track down that hot chocolate you wanted if you behave for the doctor," he wheedled.

"Okay," she agreed quickly, grinning at him.

Smiling himself, proud that he'd convinced her successfully, he got up to make a run to the mess hall. "Colonel?" she called when he was three steps away. He turned back around patiently. "Twenty-four marshmallows, please!"

Refusing to look at Janet because he could just picture the smug look on her face, he refused to look affected by the fact that someone he'd been giving order to for seven years was now bossing him around quite efficiently as little more than a baby. He made an exaggerated bow instead and said, "Certainly, m'lady," before backing out of the infirmary.

He could hear familiar giggling halfway down the hallway, and knew any attempt to order her not to would not be obeyed this time.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	3. Chapter 3

Ch 3

When Jack returned to the infirmary, he was surprised to see Janet still standing next to Sam's bed with a tray of needles and blood-collecting material.

"Aren't you done yet, Doc?"

"She wouldn't let me start until you got back," Janet explained, sounding exasperated.

Sam was smiling at him, or rather, at the cup in his hand. It had taken him a while to track down some hot chocolate mix and a disposable coffee cup with a lid, not wanting her to spill hot liquid on herself, and his quest for marshmallows had been entirely unsuccessful. But, he sat back down next to her hopefully and took the top off the cup, showing her what was inside. "I couldn't find any marshmallows, Sam, but I put 24 seconds worth of whipped cream on top. That okay?"

"Yes!" she agreed quickly. He smiled in satisfaction and put the lid back on, carefully setting it on the table between the beds. He watched while she grabbed an alcohol soaked cotton ball from Janet and carefully wiped her own arm where Janet told her to wipe.

As Janet prepared to draw blood with the tiny butterfly needle, Sam turned to him quickly, holding out her hand. He took it, surprised. Squeezing with all her might, she nonetheless turned her attention back to Janet and watched closely in rapt attention as the needle was inserted into her arm and the blood started flowing into the two small collection tubes Janet had to take. The contradiction amused Jack - Sam's innate curiosity battling with the typical childlike dislike of needles. When she was done, Janet put a band-aid on her arm and Jack noted in amusement that Janet had drawn a smiley face on it with a marker.

"There, that's all for now, sweetie," Janet said. "You were a very brave patient, and as long as these results come back clean, I shouldn't have to give you any more shots."

Grinning, Sam looked at Jack expectantly. "Hot chocolate, please!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

General Hammond entered the infirmary looking displeased. Well, the man had every right to be grumpy. He'd been awoken at home by his CMO and had to come to the base in the middle of the night for an as-yet unspecified medical 'situation' with SG-1.

It was _always _SG-1.

"Report, Colonel," Hammond ordered. "And does this have anything to do with the trail of clothing I've found all over my base?" he demanded, tossing a stack of clothes onto the foot of Sam's bed.

Sam, who had been in the bathroom with Janet, came back into the room, the big black tee-shirt she was wearing only hanging onto one skinny shoulder and coming past her knees. Not noticing the new person in the room, she headed straight for Jack and said, "Dr. Janet said you were probably finishing my hot chocolate while I was gone!" as she reached for the drink.

"How dare she falsely accuse me," Jack said, setting the drink down to help her up onto the bed. She could probably have scrambled up there on her own, but the rails were pulled up for her and Daniel's safety. To his surprise, she crawled into his lap instead, apparently seeing it as the quickest route to her coveted hot chocolate. She took the cup carefully in both hands and took a big gulp, settling into him comfortably like sleepy children all over the world. Only after a few long gulps did she lower the cup enough to notice General Hammond.

"Are you another doctor?" she asked.

"He's the General," Jack told her quietly.

"Oh. Sorry, General." she gave him a sweet smile and took another long drink from her cup.

"That's okay, Sammy," General Hammond said automatically.

Jack looked at him in surprise, and saw that the General was turning faintly red. "I'm assuming you're about to give me the only good reason I can possibly think of for you to be holding your Second in your lap, Colonel," he said, his tone all business.

Brushing aside the peculiar way he'd just greeted the little girl - for the moment - Jack said, "Ah, yes, sir. Maybe we should talk about this… away from little pitchers and their big ears?"

"Yes, I agree, Colonel."

"Don't leave me alone with Doctor Janet, Colonel!" Sam piped up quickly, grabbing onto his shirt sleeve.

Hammond sighed. "I'll go discuss this situation with Dr. Fraiser first, then I want to hear from you, Jack," Hammond decided, heading for Fraiser's adjacent office, stopping on the way to stare at the still-sleeping miniature Daniel for a few moments before shaking his head in disbelief and waving Fraiser to follow him into her office.

They didn't shut the door all the way, and although Jack couldn't hear them as they talked quietly, he could still see the General's profile through the partly-open door. He noticed Sam watching him too, just sort of staring at the older man steadily as she finished her hot chocolate. He supposed she was just focusing on the new person in the room while she got closer and closer to going back to sleep, and didn't try to strike up a further conversation with her, hoping she would fall back asleep soon.

Additionally, he was starting to get a little concerned at the fact that she'd been up and alert for a while now, and Daniel hadn't so much as stirred in his bed, continuing to breathe steadily with his mouth open. He thought she must be nearly asleep after about ten minutes, but didn't dare move yet to check, when Hammond and Fraiser came back into the room. Sam continued to stare at the General, which he noticed. Jack couldn't help but be amused at how increasingly uncomfortable the little girl's stare seemed to be making him.

Finally, she announced, "You look a lot like my Uncle George just _waaaaaaaaaaay _older."

"Uncle George?" Jack asked with a huge grin, looking to the older man. "Ah, the pieces continue to fall into place. Who's Uncle George, Sam?" he asked.

"He's my godfather," she answered promptly. "Only I haven't seen him in a long time because he had to move to another base. In Texas."

"I had no idea she would remember that," Hammond said, looking amazed.

"You _are _my Uncle George," Sam accused. "How come you didn't say so before? And how did you get so old so fast? Where'd the rest of your hair go?"

Jack hastily tried to turn his laugh into a cough.

Hammond was now distinctly pink in the face. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I didn't know if you would recognize me or not. You know, it _has _been a long time since I've seen you."

"You have no idea," Janet muttered to herself.

"I guess I do look a lot older, huh?"

"Yeah, you look even older than Colonel Jack! And hey! You're s'posed to be a Colonel too like my Daddy… how come everyone was calling you 'General?'"

"I, uh… got a promotion," Hammond explained.

"Wow, good job, Uncle George!" she praised enthusiastically. Then she frowned. "Did you have a party to celebrate without me?" she demanded.

Jack was laughing to himself again, as Hammond held up both hands. "No, no, no party without you. I promise. Now, do you think you can get back in bed and go back to sleep while I talk to Colonel O'Neill here for a few minutes?" he asked hopefully.

"Well," she said after thinking about it carefully for a few moments. "I can get back in bed but I can't promise to fall asleep, Uncle George. If you think too hard about goin to sleep, you can't do it."

He chuckled. "Well, I suppose that's fair. You be good for Janet, okay?"

"I will," she promised.

Jack got up and deposited her carefully onto her bed, tucking her in and making sure the rails were locked into place. He smiled at her and said, "Wish me luck."

"Good luck, Colonel," she said cheerfully, draining the last of her hot chocolate from the cup and setting it on the table next to the bed.

Jack followed Hammond and Janet outside. They left the door open a crack so they could hear if she got out of bed, and spoke quietly so they wouldn't be overheard.

"Okay, Dr. Fraiser has told me that her preliminary tests confirm that those children are both Major Carter and Dr. Jackson, and that they appear perfectly healthy and normal, apart from the fact that Major Carter obviously believes she is only three years old…"

"Four," Jack corrected.

"Whatever. The point is… I'm assuming this had something to do with the egg-like device they were working on?"

"I'd say that's a safe bet," Jack said.

Hammond sighed. "I'll get a team on it first thing in the morning. What else have you learned?"

Jack shrugged and succinctly retraced all of his steps for the General, telling him exactly how he'd found his team, recognized them, and brought them straight to the infirmary. "Well, at least that explains why I found two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, a pair of boxers, and a pair or women's underwear on my way down here," Hammond said. "I was beginning to think someone around here was blatantly defying the fraternization regulations."

Jack raised both eyebrows, and Janet looked faintly embarrassed on behalf of her friends, mentally noting to have the pile of clothes now in her infirmary cleaned and discreetly returned to Sam and Daniel's respective lockers as quickly as possible.

"All right. Dr. Fraiser, since you said you have more tests to run, I'm going to ask you to watch them tonight, Colonel O'Neill."

"Yes, sir," he said automatically. As if he was going to leave them alone in the infirmary all night! Daniel hadn't even woken up yet, for crying out loud! He never left a teammate in the infirmary before they'd at least regained consciousness.

"You can have the empty bed next to Sam's," Janet said, doubting he would take it. No doubt he would doze in the chair so he wouldn't sleep too deeply.

"Since you haven't been cleared for active duty yet again anyway, I'll put you in charge of them until further notice," Hammond continued. "Teal'c can help you with them if he wants, but he still has to go on SG-3's mission with them four days from now."

"Yes, sir."

"Um, sir," Janet piped up.

"Yes, doctor?"

"I don't have anything on hand that will really fit either of them very well, sir, and they can't very well run around in over-large tee-shirts indefinitely," Janet pointed out.

"True," Hammond realized. "All right. I'll have someone find something for them by morning, and Jack can take them shopping after that, once you've cleared them to leave the infirmary."

"Shopping?" Jack winced.

"Jack, the two people most likely to figure that device out in a remotely timely manner are currently still mastering the alphabet and tying their shoes in there!" Hammond pointed out. "The chances are good this will take a while to sort out."

"Great," he groaned. "Then can I put in a request to have someone ask Thor if he can help us speed up the process?"

"Noted, Colonel."

"And I bet they can read already," Jack defended belatedly. At the looks he got, he said, "Well, Sam said she's already in kindergarten, and I bet Danny boy was born with a book in his hands!"

Hammond sighed. "Just take good care of them, Jack. Oh, and watch out for Sam. If I remember correctly from Jacob, she was something of a troublemaker."

Jack looked at him skeptically. "The tiny little blonde in there who is insisting on addressing me as 'Colonel' is a _troublemaker, _sir?"

Hammond shrugged. "See for yourself then, Colonel. Good luck."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After telling her every bedtime story he could vaguely recall, the infirmary was finally silent. Jack looked back and forth between the two sleeping children, shaking his head. Only his team would get themselves into a situation like this. And Sam was quickly proving what Jack had always secretly thought true - Carter was entirely too smart for her own good. As a child, she made no attempt to hide it or be respectful of his title beyond studiously addressing him by it, and that was simply a learned behavior her father had clearly ingrained in her at an early age. It had made telling her a bedtime story very frustrating, for one, as she corrected him every other sentence when he misremembered something or got a little creative with the plotline of the three little pigs, Goldilocks, or Cinderella.

She was certainly entertaining, and adorable, and even the bossiness and relentless inquisitiveness was endearing in its own way, but he was damn tired by the time she finally fell back asleep. He slouched down more comfortably in his chair and let his eyes drift closed, just for a few moments…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	4. Chapter 4

Ch 4

Daniel woke up groggily and sat up, looking around. He was in an unfamiliar room, and it looked like a doctor's or a hospital or something. He saw a sleeping man in a chair next to him, and a little girl in the bed nearest him. Thinking to himself that the girl looked nice enough, he decided to go see if she knew where they were and what was going on. He climbed out of the bed carefully - off the bottom where there weren't any rails to get in the way - and padded over to the other bed, climbing up it from the bottom as well. He carefully made his way to the pillow, crossing his legs next to the sleeping girl's side, and touched her shoulder cautiously, shaking her a little.

"Hello? Wake up, please," he whispered.

She woke up and looked at him. "Hi!"

"Shh," Daniel said quickly, pointing to the sleeping man. "I'm Daniel, what's your name?"

"I'm Sam," she whispered back.

"Is that your dad?" Daniel asked, pointing to the man in the chair again.

"No, he's our friend. He knows my daddy, though, and my Uncle George, so maybe he knows your parents too. His name is Jack O'Neill. He's a Colonel in the Air Force."

"The what?"

She rolled her eyes. "The Air Force. You know, the soldier guys who fly planes and stuff? My dad is in it too. I think this place must be a Air Force base, but I don't think it's the one my Daddy works at."

"Oh," Daniel said. "Why are you here then?"

"I dunno… The Colonel said my parents had to go somewhere and they asked him to watch me. I guess yours wanted him to watch you too."

"My parents are archaeologists," Daniel said. "They don't fly planes."

"Archae… whats?" Sam asked.

"It's a big word," Daniel said proudly. "It means they dig up stuff from really old people and places. Sometimes even dinosaur bones!"

"Wow," Sam said, sufficiently awed, as any four year old would be, by the mention of dinosaurs.

"I guess maybe they had to go on another dig they couldn't take me on," Daniel said dubiously. "And I guess Grampa Nick couldn't watch me." Daniel's eyes flickered back to Jack curiously.

"He's really nice," Sam promised. "He gave me hot chocolate with whipped cream last night."

"Really?" Daniel asked, brightening considerably.

"Yeah. And in the night, I saw Doctor Janet come out of her office with her own cup that probably had it in there, when she thought I was sleeping. I bet there's more in there, want to go see?"

"Okay," he agreed, grinning. This girl had good ideas! He definitely wanted to be her friend. "I'm four," he offered.

"I'm four too!" Sam replied happily. "Come on, let's go. But be quiet so we don't wake him up," she ordered, crawling past him to the foot of the bed. Daniel slid off the edge expertly, but Sam was a good three or four inches shorter, and considerably lighter. Daniel tried to help her get down, awkwardly setting her on her feet.

"Thanks!" she said, grinning at him. She led the way over to the office door and peeked inside cautiously to make sure Janet wasn't in there anymore. The little room was empty.

The two small children hurried inside, Daniel shutting the door quietly behind them. Now they didn't have to be quite as quiet while they talked. "Who's Dr. Janet?" he asked.

"She took blood from me last night but she was really nice about it. And I got the hot chocolate after," Sam explained. "You were still asleep."

"Oh." Daniel pointed to a machine on one of the counters. It had a pot with a dark brown substance in it. "Is that the hot chocolate?"

"Yeah, I guess that's the machine that makes it," Sam concluded. They looked around and together dragged a rolling chair over to the counter. They both awkwardly climbed onto it.

Daniel looked around and saw a bunch of mugs sitting next to the machine.

"I'm not s'posed to use a cup without a lid," Sam admitted doubtfully, when he grabbed the nearest mug.

"We'll be really careful," Daniel suggested. "I get cups without lids all the time because you have to im-pro-vise in the field," he said, clearly proud of his big word usage. "If I can do it you can!"

"Okay," she agreed, taking the cup he handed her.

Together, they carefully took hold of the handle of what was, of course, unbeknownst to them, Janet's coffee pot. They knew it was going to be hot, so they were careful to only touch the handle and carefully moved it to the counter. Daniel then poured it into each cup, while Sam held the cups steady. He shoved the pot to the back of the counter and peered into the cup curiously. "It looks _really _dark," he said.

"It's good though," Sam promised.

They both took big sips at the same time, and promptly spit out the contents back into their mugs and set their cups down in revulsion. "That's the grossest hot chocolate ever!" Sam exclaimed, wiping her mouth on her shirt sleeve.

Daniel was wiping his tongue with his hand. "Eww, yuck!"

Once they'd both recovered, Sam said thoughtfully, "Maybe if we put enough milk or whipped cream in there…"

The two kids busied themselves examining all the stuff near the coffee pot, and soon had added a large quantity of vanilla instant creamer and an entirely unhealthy amount of sugar into each of their mugs, until the mugs would hold no further liquid. This time, they sipped cautiously. Both smiled at each other. It wasn't hot chocolate exactly, but… "Now it tastes good," Daniel said proudly. Sam nodded and they climbed off the chair before carefully carrying their mugs over to the clearest space in the room, where they sat down on the floor to enjoy their beverages.

"Do you go to school?" Sam asked once they were seated.

"Sometimes," Daniel said. "When I'm not with my parents on a dig or something. Then they teach me."

"That's neat. I go to school every day. Except weekends, duh. What grade are you in?"

Daniel shrugged. "I think last time I went to school I went to kindergarten. It was only for a week and then we had to move so my dad could teach in England."

"You move a lot huh."

"Yeah."

"I only have moved once so far but in the Air Force you have to move a lot. My brother, he's older than me, and he's already moved three times. I go to kindergarten too."

"Can you read?" Daniel asked. "I can."

"Yup! I can too! Can you do math?"

"Some."

"Yeah, me too, some."

The conversation continued as most conversations between particularly inquisitive and articulate four year olds getting to know each other do. The two were easily fast friends by the time their coffee cups were empty, neither noticing how loud they were getting as all the caffeine and sugar in their systems took effect.

They quickly grew bored in the tiny room and were just contemplating the merits of looking for something else to do or getting another cup of "hot chocolate" to take with them first when the door burst open and Jack and Janet looked at them in pure shock.

"Uh-oh. Busted," Sam said quietly.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Busted is right, young lady," Janet said firmly, eyes going from her misplaced coffee pot to the empty mugs in front of the children. "Colonel! You were supposed to be watching them! They've had _coffee!" _

"No way. Not even Carter and Daniel would like that stuff at four," Jack said defensively. He _hoped _not, at any rate. Kids on a sugar high were bad enough… kids with a mug full of caffeine and sugar…

"We thought it was a hot chocolate machine!" Sam explained quickly. "It was gross at first, but…"

"We made it taste _good," _Daniel concluded, grinning ear to ear.

"Hammond's going to kill me," Jack muttered to himself.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Sam announced to Janet suddenly.

"Me too," Daniel said, scrambling to his feet next to his new friend.

"First things first then, I suppose," Janet said, stepping out of the doorway and gesturing them to follow her. Sam did instantly, Daniel following her lead. Jack watched them go, looking at both of them like they were ticking time bombs.

Sure enough, Janet's exam of Daniel proved even more difficult than Sam's had been, despite the fact that Daniel didn't have as many questions about who they all were and where he was as Sam had - Jack was glad to learn that the little girl had apparently already explained things to Daniel's satisfaction. Remembering what little he knew about Daniel's childhood, he suspected the child was used to being moved around a lot and left with people. It was unfortunate, perhaps, in general, but it meant he seemed comfortable with all of them and his new surroundings almost instantly.

However, due to the caffeine and sugar, he couldn't sit still during the exam. He and Sam kept up a constant chatter, between themselves and with both adults, as they asked tons of questions about the tests Janet was running and then switched to asking Jack what they were going to do that day, and when they could have breakfast, and couldn't they please have some clothes that weren't quite so large, and could they go outside to play later…

Jack was used to both of them talking fast when they got excited about something, but as children he found the rate at which they were able to speak to be truly baffling. They seemed to understand each other just fine, but he frequently found himself several questions or answers behind as he had to stop and decode what they'd just said.

Janet had also had a long night of running as many tests as possible as fast as possible to get some answers about their condition, and the chattering was wearing on her nerves by the time she was done. Plus, Sam had already knocked over a canister of cotton balls and broken a thermometer in her effort to help Janet examine Daniel.

"No playing Doctor until you're thirty," Jack said firmly, taking the broken thermometer from her and pulling her away from the tray of medical supplies. "Or better yet, forty. And even then, you can't play that kind of doctor." Especially with Daniel, he added to himself.

Janet shot him an amused look and went to get a new thermometer.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Half an hour later, Hammond turned up with clothing from them, which he had sent Walter to get from the store at the nearby Air Force Academy, since it opened earlier than civilian stores.

Walter had returned with what he could find - tiny black sweatpants with the Air Force logo on the left hip, and gray tee-shirts with the logo, each of which proclaimed "Future Recruit."

"Only a half lie, then," Jack said as he tossed a tiny shirt to each child. Both kids started eagerly pulling the large black shirts they were in over their heads. "I'll wait out here," Jack insisted, hurrying into the hallway quickly. He didn't care that he could hear Janet snickering at him as she started helping the children get dressed. The grown up Daniel was surprisingly unconcerned with his own modesty - maybe it was the year on Abydos or something, or simply that the man lived inside his own head, and Carter had shared a locker room with all three of them for years, but she did always at least change her shirt with her back to the rest of them.

Besides, now that they were little kids, it was just… weird. He'd let the doctor take care of the dressing, undressing, and grooming departments as much as she was willing, he decided firmly.

When they joined him in the hallway, he had to grin at the sight of them. The shirt was still a little big on Sam, but fit Daniel surprisingly well. And the sweatpants were rolled up at the waist a couple of times on the little girl. They also had on the cheap plastic flip flops Jack thought of as "shower shoes" and they were a bit too big for each of them, but would do for the time being. All in all, they looked much more comfortable. And cute in the matching ensembles, he thought to himself. They actually could pass for twins fairly easily, their looks similar enough even without the matching clothes.

"We're starving, Colonel!" Sam told him immediately. Daniel nodded eagerly.

"Well, come on then. Let's go give dear old Uncle Teal'c the surprise of his life at breakfast!" Jack decided, clapping his hands together eagerly.

"Who?" Daniel asked Sam as she took Jack's hand to follow him down the corridor.

"I dunno," Sam said with a shrug.

Daniel scurried around to Jack's other side, grabbing his other hand, and asked, "Who's Uncle Teal'c, Colonel Jack?"

"You can just call me Jack," Jack laughed. "And he's another good friend of ours. He's lots of fun, and very strong. I bet if you ask he'll let you climb all over him and give you all sorts of fun piggy back rides and everything!"

"Yay!" they both exclaimed, hopping along beside him eagerly, still full of caffeine.

Jack decided a sugar-free breakfast was definitely on the menu - if he could get them to eat it, of course. Somehow, he didn't think it would be easy.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Thanks for all the encouraging reviews. I'm glad people are enjoying this. There are just some things you HAVE to do with a kidfic or it doesn't make sense, like for example the obligatory shopping trip. But I hope to have enough originality in there to keep people entertained. Thanks again!

Ch 5

"Morning, Teal'c," Jack greeted casually. "Good old fashioned team breakfast, huh?"

Teal'c looked at the two small children and his eyes widened only slightly. "Apparently. Am I to take it that these children are Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter?"

"Yup, got it in one!" he said. "Guys, say hi to Uncle Teal'c."

"Hi Uncle Teal'c," they chorused eagerly, grinning at him hugely.

"You will explain this more thoroughly later, O'Neill," Teal'c said pointedly before moving to the back of the breakfast line.

It wasn't a request.

Jack nodded and appreciated Teal'c's instant understanding of the situation.

The children were staring up at Teal'c with their mouths slightly open, clearly in awe of his massive size. Teal'c looked down at them calmly, waiting patiently. Daniel found his voice first. "You must be the strongest person on Earth!" he said in an awed almost-whisper.

"Can we climb you?" Sam asked promptly, bolstered by Daniel's braveness.

Jack laughed, particularly when Teal'c looked puzzled. "Why would you wish to climb me?"

"Ah, no climbing until after breakfast," Jack interrupted, nudging the kids into line behind Teal'c.

The possibility of breakfast provided sufficient distraction… for now, at least.

Negotiating the breakfast line wasn't easy. He repeatedly pulled each child's hands back as they reached for things like doughnuts and other sugary breakfast items. When Teal'c finally got tired of listening to the children's objections, which got more and more whiny the further down the line they went, he said, "O'Neill, would it not be easier to let them choose their own breakfasts?"

"Yeah but they've already had coffee with about a pound of sugar in it," Jack said. "Any more and they'll be flying around the room."

He finally brought them over to their usual table and set their breakfasts in front of them hopefully. Each child climbed onto a chair sullenly, staring at their plates skeptically.

"These eggs are too yellow," Sam announced, poking at them with her fork.

Daniel picked up a piece of bacon and cautiously sniffed it before nibbling it. "Ew!" he spit it out and wiped his hand on his napkin. Sam's bacon promptly got shoved off her plate as well after observing Daniel's fate.

As breakfast went on, Jack ignored them as long as he could, hoping they'd be hungry enough to try eating it if he just left them to it. After a few cautious tastes, pokes, and trades back and forth between the two of them, however, Jack had to give up. Daniel had eaten a buttered biscuit and Sam had finished her juice - which admittedly contained sugar - but that was about all they'd eaten.

"Okay," Jack finally relented. "What will you eat?"

"Waffles!" Daniel said immediately.

"Don't suppose there's a chance you want them without syrup," Jack muttered. "Sam, do you want waffles too?"

She nodded. "And a doughnut!"

"Me too!"

"Eat the waffles, and Sam eat your biscuit, and then you can _share _a doughnut afterwards," Jack said firmly.

They looked at each other and decided it was a fair deal. "Okay," they agreed.

"Promise?" Jack asked.

Daniel nodded eagerly. "Yes, sir," Sam said, nodding eagerly as well.

Rolling his eyes, Jack went to fetch them new plates.

Teal'c, finding himself suddenly alone at the table with the two small children, slid Daniel's untouched eggs onto his own plate and watched as Sam obediently ate her biscuit.

She was staring at him as she ate. Teal'c returned the stare calmly while he ate the eggs, wondering what she was doing. "Are you cataloging my features for future reference?" he finally asked.

She giggled. "I dunno, maybe. What does that mean?"

"I was questioning your motives in staring at me."

"Oh. I was just thinking," she said, as O'Neill came back with two new plates and a bottle of syrup. "If _you're _more than a hundred, you musta been lying last night Colonel, because no way is Uncle Teal'c older than you!"

The marines at the next table, who hadn't exactly been trying to hide the fact that they were watching SG-1 in amusement, all burst out laughing.

"Very funny," Jack told her. "Just for that, smartass, Daniel gets the syrup first."

"Umm, you said 'ass,'" Daniel said as Jack poured syrup onto the boy's waffles for him and Sam giggled. "Oops! I just said it too!" Daniel squeaked sheepishly, looking amazed at his own accidental bravery… and even more amazed when none of the adults around seemed to care that he'd said it. Neat!

"I am in fact over a hundred years old, Samantha," Teal'c said, after giving the marines a stern look until they turned away from them. "I am many decades older than O'Neill."

"Really?"

"Truly," Teal'c confirmed.

"Woooow," she said in awe, staring at Teal'c in admiration as Jack poured syrup onto her waffles for her.

He sat back down, keeping the syrup and their doughnut carefully with him, and resumed eating his own breakfast. Sam picked up her fork after a few moments and frowned at her plate, turning to Jack. "I need you to cut up my waffles for me," she stated. "Sir," she added quickly with a sweet smile after she remembered her father's rules.

"Oh for cryin out loud, Carter," he muttered, grabbing her plate and his knife quickly and shooting a scowl at the marines, who were laughing heartily again. "You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"

"But I like you! I wouldn't kill you!" she sounded appalled.

"I like you too," Daniel said sincerely, as the marines laughed some more.

"Great," he said, sliding the plate back over to the little girl. "Daniel, do you need me to cut up your waffles too?" he demanded.

Daniel shook his head with a grin, flipped his top waffle over onto the one underneath it so both syrup sides touched each other, picked the whole thing up with both hands, and started eating it like a sandwich. Jack groaned - the kid was getting syrup all over his hands and face - but let him get on with it by himself.

"An interesting tactic, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c commented, passing the child a mountain of napkins.

"Thanks, Uncle Teal'c!" Daniel said happily with a syrupy grin.

Jack shook his head and watched as the kids worked their way steadily through their breakfasts, downing two more cups of coffee himself. He had a feeling he would need a central line of the stuff to keep up with these two. Speaking of which, reinforcements would always be good to have…

"Hey, T? We have to go get these kids some stuff to wear and a few things to keep them busy with. You coming with?"

"You wish me to accompany you to a children's store?" he asked, after contemplating the request for a few moments. He watched the kids dubiously - Sam had taken a piece of toast off her first, largely untouched plate, eaten it so that the part that remained looked like a pistol, and was pretending to shoot Daniel with it. Daniel was dying so dramatically - and loudly - that several other people in the commissary were looking over like they thought Jack might be hurting the boy.

"I will pass, O'Neill," Teal'c concluded.

"Oh, come on, Teal'c, it'll be fun," Jack tried.

"I cannot accompany you this morning anyway, O'Neill. I have agreed to teach a hand to hand combat seminar for the latest SGC recruits. It lasts until three o'clock this afternoon."

"Fine. But you're helping me after that," Jack stated.

"Don't you want to play with us?" Daniel asked Teal'c, sounding hurt.

He and Sam both turned huge, sad puppy dog eyes on Teal'c, who studied them and said finally, "Of course I wish to play with you. But first I must perform my prearranged duties to the SGC."

"Huh?" Sam asked.

"He has to work," Jack translated.

"I shall 'play' with you both later, if you wish," Teal'c promised.

The kids beamed at him, clearly envisioning Teal'c being able to swing them around and roughhouse with them to their hearts' content.

"Oh! Okay! Hey, Colonel? Are we just going to buy boring clothes or are we getting toys too?" Sam wanted to know next.

"We'll get some toys. Otherwise you'll probably be trying to dismantle the dialing computer by noon," Jack said.

"The what?" Sam asked interestedly.

"Never mind. Yes, we'll get some toys."

"Yaaaaaaaaaay!" Sam and Daniel chorused.

A passing nurse smiled at them. "They are so cute!" she gushed.

"Yeah, they're peachy," Jack agreed dryly, pulling Daniel's plate away from him - he was finished with the waffles, and looking around for other things to dip into the syrup still on his plate. "Hey, since they're just so adorable and all, why don't you take them back to the infirmary with you, and you can help the doc get them all un-sticky for their big trip?" he tried hopefully with a winning smile.

The nurse looked at the two syrup-covered children and shook her head quickly. "Um, well, sir, the thing is, I haven't actually had breakfast yet and…"

"Yeah, yeah," Jack waved her away.

She scurried off quickly. Sam leaned over the table towards Jack and patted his forearm with a sticky hand. "Can we have our doughnut now? We finished all our waffles, sir!"

He cut the doughnut in half, handed a piece to each kid, and tried to scrub the syrup out of his arm hair with a wet napkin while they devoured the doughnuts.

They were nearly finished when Janet and General Hammond joined them. "Good morning, SG-1," Hammond greeted.

"Uncle George!" Sam exclaimed happily, scrambling to her feet on her chair and trying to jump into the General's arms, completely unafraid of falling even though he was a good three feet away.

Jack got up quickly and intercepted her mid-flight. "I don't think Uncle George wants his clean dress uniform to be sticky all day, Sam," he pointed out, setting her back in her chair.

"I forgot. Sorry, Uncle George."

"That's okay, Sammy," Hammond said, patting her carefully on the top of the head - one of the few non-sticky places on her.

"Colonel, what on earth have you been giving these children?" Fraiser demanded, surveying the plates on the table.

Jack shifted uncomfortably in his seat, while Daniel piped up helpfully, "We had waffles and doughnuts, Dr. Janet. And juice."

"All sugar," Janet concluded unhappily. "Sir, really, they are small children, do you have any idea…"

"Hey, I tried!" Jack interrupted defensively, avoiding the General's eyes, as he was being scowled at by both the General and Fraiser. "They wouldn't eat anything else. It's not like there's a huge variety around here that DOESN'T have sugar in it, you know!"

"The eggs were too yellow," Sam complained.

"And the bacon tasted like feet," Daniel added.

"We did eat our biscuits, Dr. Janet," Sam said.

"Still, all that sugar on top of coffee…"

"Coffee?" Hammond asked sharply. "Colonel, I thought it was perfectly safe to leave my goddaughter with you but if you can't even follow the most basic…"

"She's fine, General!" Jack objected defensively. "Aren't you, Sam?"

Sam nodded, quickly finishing her doughnut before Janet could take it away. "The Colonel is taking us to buy toys, Uncle George!" she informed him happily, mouth full of doughnut.

"Is he now?" Hammond asked, eyeing Jack.

"And clothes," Jack added.

"Oh yeah," Sam remembered, swallowing the last of her doughnut in time to declare loudly, "Well, that's good I guess, cuz I'm not wearing any underwears!"

"Me neither, I don't have any underwear on either!" Daniel added.

The marines and several other people around them laughed again at the loud declarations.

"You guys are going to kill me," Jack said, getting to his feet. "Come on, we're going. Don't touch anything," he added, grabbing them under the armpits to set them on their feet without touching their sticky arms or hands.

He steered them out of the commissary with a head on top of each of their heads, keeping them at arm's reach so they couldn't touch him, each other, or anyone else, and took them to SG-1's locker room. Using several washcloths and a lot of soap and water, he scrubbed at their arms, hands, and faces until they weren't sticky anymore - it took a long time. The spaces between their little fingers was particularly hard to reach and clean.

Finally satisfied that they wouldn't get his truck all sticky, he stood up and tossed the wash cloths into the hamper. He changed into his civilian clothes while they played tag with each other around the benches in the middle of the room, then led the way to the surface, and his truck. He put them in the backseat and buckled them in securely, and started the truck.

"Where are we going?" Daniel asked immediately as they left the parking lot.

"Good question," Jack said under his breath. His first instinct was Toysrus, but he couldn't remember them having many clothes there, and he only wanted to make one stop if possible. "We'll go to Target first. They have clothes and some toys there. If you're really good there, we might go to another toy store too after that," he decided.

"We'll be good!" Daniel promised.

"Yeah, we'll be good!" Sam echoed, swinging her legs eagerly in the backseat. Jack shot her a look in the mirror as he felt the drumming of little feet against the back of his seat and sighed - she was just excited, and full of sugar. She wasn't even really trying to kick his seat. "Colonel? How long does it take to get there?"

"About fifteen minutes," he answered.

"How long is that?" she persisted.

"I don't know, why don't you count and see?" he suggested, feeling tired already.

"Okay," she agreed happily, starting to count. Out loud. Daniel joined in eagerly. Jack listened, gripping the steering wheel tighter and tighter the longer the counting continued. He had shot himself in the foot here. He didn't think she'd be able to count that high - Daniel had dropped out in the mid-thirties, but Sam was still going strong. And, had he thought she'd been able, he still wouldn't have thought she _would _keep counting for so long, sure she'd get bored and move onto something else.

Daniel was busying himself looking out the window and describing everything he was seeing in great detail - apparently talking to himself out loud, because he wasn't requiring a response from Jack or Sam.

The chattering from the backseat was so loud and distracting that Jack ran a stop sign at an empty intersection as they neared the store. He realized what he'd done when it was too late, and looked around nervously. Sure enough, just his luck, flashing lights soon appeared in his rear-view mirror. As he pulled over, he turned to the kids, imagining all sorts of trouble if they started telling the officer they weren't related to him, didn't really know him, etc. "I have to talk to this police man for a while, so you both have to be quiet, okay?"

Eyes wide, they both nodded. "I'll let you both pick out a special toy at the store if you're really, really, really quiet. Whoever can be quiet the longest gets the best toy," he said quickly as he rolled down his window.

They looked at each other, mouths clamped closed, and didn't say anything.

Hoping this would be over fast, Jack pulled out his wallet, and had his military ID ready to show to the officer when he approached.

"Good morning. Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?"

"I ran the stop sign back there. Sorry, I was distracted."

The officer nodded as he copied Jack's information down. "Well, Colonel, I'm going to have to write you a ticket."

"Fine," Jack said quickly.

The officer looked at him, surprised he wasn't being given any grief over the ticket, and caught sight of the children in the backseat. "Whoa! What have we here?" he peered into the backseat. The kids waved at him nervously but didn't say anything. "Sir, how old are those children?"

"Four," Jack answered.

"They are clearly well under the weight limit. They should be in car seats."

"Car seats? They're four!"

"I'm aware, sir, but the current law states that any child under seventy pounds must be restrained in the appropriate system for a child of that size. I myself have a five year old. She sits in a booster seat."

"You're kidding," Jack stated in disbelief. "I had no idea…"

"Then these must not be your children," the officer said.

"Niece and nephew," Jack said quickly. "Look, I'm sorry, officer. Their visit was totally unexpected, sort of an emergency, you know? They didn't bring any luggage or anything - that's why we're going shopping so early actually, they don't even have any clothes with them. I didn't know they needed to be in special seats - when my son was a child, he only had to be in a carseat until he was about two and a half, I think. It was a long time ago."

"I understand, sir, but I'm afraid this is a zero-tolerance policy law. I will have to write you two more tickets. Were you going to the Target up the road?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then I trust you will get the proper restraining systems while you're there, and install them properly before you leave the parking lot?"

"Yes," Jack groaned, as the officer wrote two more tickets.

"Good. Then since you've been so cooperative I will let it go at that."

"Thanks," Jack said through clenched teeth, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

He didn't say anything else as the officer finished up, handed him three tickets, and left. Jack took a few deep breaths and started driving again.

"Did either of you know you had to be in a car seat?" Jack asked after a few moments. Neither child answered. "You both win the contest," he said. "You can talk again."

"I didn't know!" Daniel said immediately.

"Me either," Sam promised.

"That was scary," Daniel observed.

"What do we win?" Sam asked.

"Car seats," Jack said dryly.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX


	6. Chapter 6

Ch 6

They reached the store in a few minutes. Jack grabbed a cart and instructed the kids to stay with him. They were very excited, still running on sugar and caffeine, and excited to be getting toys. "We need to do the clothes first," he insisted, steering them to the little boys' department first, feeling slightly more comfortable there than in the girls' department, which from where they were looked like it was just a mass of pink.

"Okay, pick out what you want to wear," Jack said to Daniel.

Daniel looked around, shifting on his feet a bit awkwardly. "By myself?" he finally asked.

"You guys don't pick out your own clothes?" Jack asked, wondering when kids started having their own opinions about what they wore.

Daniel and Sam looked at each other and shrugged. "No I guess," Daniel said.

"I don't like ruffles," Sam announced firmly, crossing her arms.

"Yeah, I had a feeling on that one, princess. Okay, well, let's try it this way…" Jack started trying to help Daniel pick things out, making sure the boy got pants and shorts too, since Daniel seemed mainly interested in picking out shirts. He found some clothes with dinosaurs on them and got genuinely excited about them, and soon there were a variety of clothes piled in the basket. Sam had picked out a few shirts in the boys' department too. Jack had just shrugged unconcernedly when she'd held the first one up hopefully - it had an airplane on it. Grinning at him, she'd put it in the basket with Daniel's things. After getting pajamas along with several packages of underwear and socks, Jack finally decided it was time to brave the girls' department.

Before they moved on, he did one more quick inventory of what they'd got to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything important.

In the minute he was studying the basket's contents, he lost the kids.

He looked around, up and down all the rows he could see from where he was, and groaned. "Sam? Daniel?" he called loudly, pushing the cart around looking for them.

He found them a few minutes later - after getting several looks from other customers. They were hiding under a nearby rack of clothes, apparently engrossed in a game of hide and seek with each other. He actually found them by following the sounds of their giggling, because they'd been so engrossed they hadn't even heard him calling for them.

He was bored too, so he couldn't blame them entirely, but he did need them to behave. "It's not safe to wander off in stores," he told them both firmly, picking up Daniel and putting him in the front child seat of the basket. He shoved the clothes to one side of the basket and put Sam in there with them.

Scowling at their confinement, the kids objected the whole way to the girls' department. When he realized he needed to figure out what sizes Sam needed, he picked her up again and set her on her feet. "You keep a hand on this basket at all times, young lady," he ordered, as Daniel whined that it wasn't fair for her to get out and not him.

"Yes, sir," Sam mumbled, looking sufficiently rebuked.

A passing pair of women, one much older than the one pushing the cart, which had a baby in a carrier in it, stopped to look at them. "What adorable twins!" the woman with the baby gushed, while the older woman seemed dissatisfied with the way Jack was handling them; her scowl certainly said so, even though she didn't say a word.

"Thanks," Jack said quickly, steering them down a random row just to get away from them.

Sam, for all her earlier statements that she didn't care what she wore, turned out to be much pickier than Daniel. Jack held up item after item to her hopefully, and she shook her head or wrinkled her nose at them repeatedly. She was happy enough with the stuff they'd found in the boys' department - and completely thrilled with the little makeshift SG-1 uniforms Jack had assembled with olive cargo pants and black tee-shirts, but she was shaking her head firmly at every dress Jack held up.

"You don't like dresses, okay, let's move on," he finally said.

"I like _some _dresses," she insisted. "They're comfortable, so long as they don't look _disgusting! _you can twirl around and jump and they float like you're flying, especially on the swings."

"Okay, well, are there any here that you like?" Jack asked, getting frustrated. He followed her around aisle after aisle after that, feeling very much like whining along with Daniel, who was getting bored and sick of being in the cart. Finally, Sam found three dresses she was happy with, and after that it got easier. Two pairs of overalls, jeans, and several pairs of shorts made their way into the basket, but she had more trouble finding shirts she liked than Daniel had.

"They ALL have pink on them! Or RUFFLES!" she whined impatiently.

Gradually, the pile in the basket grew as they found the rare item that was sufficiently non-ruffly and non-pink for her tastes.

She did get excited when they found the pajamas, so much so that Jack was seriously thinking they should just get as many pajamas as she wanted and she could wear them all day long for all he cared.

"I need underwear," she reminded, pointing him to the proper aisle.

"Don't you want to pick those out too?" he asked - at this point he wouldn't have been surprised if she had a preference on that either.

"I don't know what size!" she said.

"Oh." he picked up the nearest package and read the complicated sizing chart on the back, lifting her up and down experimentally by the armpits a few times to try to gauge her weight. "Okay, it looks like a 3T to me," he finally decided, hoping he was right and tossing a package into the basket. He got a few more, a large package of socks, and sighed with relief that the clothes were done. At the last minute, he grabbed the next size up in underwear too, just in case. There was no way he was coming back here if the other ones were too small.

"Toys now?" Daniel asked hopefully as Jack let him out of the basket - they were running out of room anyway.

"Shoes now," Jack grimaced.

Both kids sighed and they all headed to the nearby shoe department. Two pairs of absolutely tiny boots (because once he saw them he knew they had to have them to complete their little SGC uniforms), sneakers, and sandals later, and they were finally headed to the toy department. Here Jack didn't even try to keep the kids too close to the basket - he just wanted to be able to see them. Luckily they stayed together for the most part, running ahead until they found something they wanted to look at more closely, but not splitting up often, only occasionally, as when Sam got bored waiting for Daniel to pick out a lego set, and Daniel got tired of listening to Sam debate the various merits of a stuffed dog and a stuffed bear.

One the basket was as full as it could be, Jack had to stop them. "Okay. There's not as much variety here anyway. Let's get out of here."

"What about our special reward?" Daniel reminded.

"Oh, yeah. Well, you were _pretty _good here… I guess we'll go to the other toy store, and you can get something there. They'll have more stuff there anyway and we'll start with an empty cart. Oh, wait, we have to go find car seats for you guys first, remember?"

It took a while to locate the section that had those items, particularly because the kids were getting antsy again and trying to wander, and there wasn't room in the cart anymore for Jack to keep them confined in there. He finally found the booster seats, which were with the other car seats for smaller babies, and was baffled at the different makes and models, trying to determine which size they needed. Finally, he resorted to asking an employee for help. The overly-cheerful employee spent about five minutes gushing about how adorable his "little twins" were, then went on to explain the various pros and cons of about four different seats that all met the legal requirements for the kids' weight group.

"Which one's easiest to install?" Jack finally asked. Sam, who had been hopping from tile to tile up and down the aisle with Daniel, had just returned to his side and was leaning into him tiredly, hanging onto a fistful of fabric at his knee. Jack had a feeling they were finally starting to come down from their sugar-high, and he did remember from his days with a small child that the crash was often even worse than the high. He had a feeling they weren't going to last much longer in the store - either of them.

As he watched Daniel trudging back over to them, bored now without Sam to jump around with him and getting a little worn himself, Sam reached up to him hopefully with both arms in the universal request to be picked up, with a plaintive, "I'm _tired… _my head hurts."

He picked her up absently and turned back to the employee as Daniel took up Sam's prior spot leaning into his leg. "Please, we just need two of whichever one is easiest to install."

"Well, this one is easiest, I think," she said. "But we only have one out here. I can go check in the back…"

"No, thank you! Which one is second-easiest?"

"This one, I suppose…"

"Okay," Jack said, shifting Sam to one arm and grabbing the box awkwardly. He stuck it in the seat Daniel had occupied earlier, while the employee slid a second one under the basket for him. "Thanks," Jack said quickly.

He steered them towards the front of the store, moving a bit awkwardly since Sam had no interest in walking again and Daniel was clinging tiredly to the basket, which Jack was having to steer with one hand since he was carrying Sam.

He finally got to the checkout line and started piling things one-handed onto the conveyor belt. it seemed to take forever.

That was Daniel's opinion, at least, one which he repeated frequently.

It took another thirty minutes - and much muttering of various colorful phrases under his breath so the kids wouldn't hear - to get their purchases secure in the bed of his truck and to install the seats in the back, while the kids watched tiredly from the front seat. Sam was whimpering that her head hurt, and started crying when Daniel startled them all by accidentally honking the horn.

Jack finally got the seats ready for them and strapped them in, then reached into the bed of the truck and fished out two of their new purchases - a purple stuffed unicorn Sam had picked out, and a green brontosaurus Daniel had picked out. He handed a toy to each kid. Sam hugged hers, wiping her eyes tiredly, and got quieter. Daniel started talking to his with a tired sniffle.

Satisfied, Jack started the car and buckled his own seatbelt, smiling to himself as he heard Daniel shakily introducing himself to the stuffed animal, like he'd heard him introduce himself to countless aliens over the years. "H-hi, I'm Daniel Jackson."

Five minutes out of the parking lot, both kids were asleep. He decided the trip to the toy store would have to be postponed. He took them back to the base, driving the long way so they'd sleep longer in case they woke up when he moved them. To his surprise, they were completely zonked, and he was able to carry them both in at once, one sleepy (and in Daniel's case, drooling) face smushed into each shoulder. Not knowing where else to take them, he went back to the infirmary, but it was a much less restful place during the day than it was at night.

Janet smiled at him sympathetically when he entered with his arms so full, and came over to him after handing off the chart in her hand to one of her nurses. "Hammond ordered the VIP suite set up for you," she said quietly, rubbing the sleeping little backs absently. "Are they okay?"

"Yeah, it was just a long trip. I need a nap too."

"I bet. Well, I have a few minutes, I can help you get them settled in there."

"Thanks, Doc."

They headed to the elevators again, and she led them to the largest VIP room, opening all necessary doors and so on along the way. Whereas the room usually held one large bed, the bed had been removed and replaced by three of the narrow twin beds that were in everyone's quarters on base. The seating area remained the same. Fraiser turned down two of the beds, then took Sam from him carefully and put her down in one of the beds, while Jack put Daniel down in the other, pulled off his flip flops, and pulled the covers up around him. He turned to see that Janet had done the same to Sam.

"There's a ton of stuff in my truck for them. Can you stay with them while I get it?" he asked tiredly.

"Sorry, sir, I need to get back to the infirmary. If you'd like to give me your keys, I can have a couple of Airmen bring everything in for you and you can stay with them."

"Thank you," he said gratefully, handing her the keys.

She nodded, and couldn't resist adding from the doorway, "I guess you've learned your lesson about sugar and caffeine in such massive quantities, Colonel, so I won't say 'I told you so.'"

"Funny, sounds like you just did," he muttered after she'd gone. Although to her credit, he had to admit he'd never been admonished by the doctor in such a gentle tone before.

He collapsed onto the third bed and didn't even move when the Airmen started bringing in bags ten minutes later, other than to wave a tired hand of thanks at them as his keys were put on the dresser.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


	7. Chapter 7

Ch 7

In what seemed like no time at all, someone was knocking on the door. Scrambling to answer, in order to stop the knocking before it woke the sleeping four year olds, Jack hurriedly yanked the door open, ready to growl at whomever had risked waking them. Since it was General Hammond, he decided he sort of had to let it go.

"General. You joining us for naptime, sir?" he asked quietly.

"Not exactly, Colonel," Hammond said. "The team I put together to study the device is ready to make their initial report, and Dr. Fraiser has her test results back. I assumed you would want to attend the meeting to get an update on your teammates' conditions."

"Yes sir. Of course. Um, the thing is, they're asleep and I don't think it would be a very good idea to leave them alone. I mean, they've never been in the VIP suite before, they'll wake up scared and confused…"

"I know, Colonel. I wasn't suggesting they be left alone. I have two guards on their way down here, with makeshift baby monitors. They will stay right outside the door while the kids sleep and go get them the moment they wake up, should they wake before you're back."

"Yes, sir," Jack said. He still wasn't certain how the children would react to being greeted upon waking by armed, uniformed strangers, but Hammond wasn't exactly giving him much choice. "I'll be right there, I just need to get back in uniform, sir."

"You do that, Colonel."

Jack quickly changing back into his BDUs and hurried to the briefing room, which was full.

Hammond got the meeting started but turned it over to Fraiser almost immediately.

"Both children are perfectly healthy," she began. "They are also without a doubt Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson. I found no genetic markers or abnormalities to suggest they are clones or anything other than younger versions of themselves. Both children appear to have their normal childhood memories up to the age of four. Unfortunately, there is also nothing in any of their medical tests that might be useful in determining how to reverse whatever happened to them. For the sake of their own psychological well-beings, I recommend strongly that nobody tell them anything that deviates from what Colonel O'Neill told them initially - that their parents had to go out of town unexpectedly and asked him to watch them. So far they are accepting this story and we don't want to upset them by letting them hear that their older selves exist and are missing, or that they aren't supposed to be here and we have teams of people trying to figure out how to get rid of them."

"I agree. Be careful what you say around them, people. Let them think they're just normal kids," Hammond said firmly.

"It's Carter and Daniel," Jack said pointedly. "There's nothing _normal _about either of them."

Everyone stared at him. He held up both hands. "I meant that in a good way."

"I concur," Teal'c contributed, speaking for the first time during the meeting.

Hammond nodded and said, "And on that note, let's hear how close we are to getting our two extraordinary adults back in place of their shrunken stand-ins."

The head geek now on the project, since Carter was out of commission on this one for all intents and purposes, stood up and cleared his throat somewhat nervously. "Well, we followed enough of what Major Carter had recorded as she examined the device to be able to tell that between what she could tell from exploring the inside of the device and what little Dr. Jackson was able to start translating from the writings on the building it was found in that it had something to do with what he translated as either 'rejuvenation' or 'rebirth.' Major Carter noted very close similarities between the device's energy signature and that emitted by a sarcophagus and the Tel'Chek device. They were both hopeful that this might prove to be a safer version of the same technology, in concept at least."

"Fountain of youth," Jack translated.

"well, clearly that applies now, knowing what it did to them. At the time, Major Carter was just beginning to activate it, starting at only .04% power, to try to determine if there was even the potential for anything like what you saw with the device from South America. She really was being very cautious, General," the scientist added a bit defensively to Hammond. "It's just that this device appears to have a very strong human component requirement that she had no way of detecting by examining the device. We only know that because it's the only thing that makes sense given that it did what it did to her. And to Dr. Jackson."

"What do you mean, human component?" Hammond asked.

"Like that Sentinel thing?" Jack demanded.

"Sort of," the scientist admitted. "Conceptually, basically, yes. We think the fact that she was severely hindering the device's access to electrical power didn't matter so much because it drew a ton of energy from her instead."

"How?"

"Either directly, if she was touching it, or through extremely close proximity, since she was definitely very close to it if not touching it at the time."

"What of Daniel Jackson's fate?" Teal's asked.

They all shrugged.

"If the thing was zapping Carter, Danny probably grabbed her to try to get her away from it," Jack pointed out. "Could that have done it, if he was touching her and she was still touching it?"

"Probably," someone chimed in.

"This is all great speculation, people, but where does it leave us?" Hammond asked. "If nobody can touch it without turning it on, how are you going to study it and get those two back to normal?"

"Well, we have a sort of… system worked out when we need to work with it directly," the lead scientist began, hedging a bit.

"System?" Jack asked, demanding clarification.

"Robot arms," said someone else. "Basically."

"Sweet," Jack said.

"Well, they're not particularly dextrous…"

"Yes, sir, we'd like to order a special machine that would be much more easy to control and much more manipulable, it's this arm that does open heart surgery and…" another scientist started eagerly, looking at Hammond hopefully.

"Will a Hazmat suit not work?" Janet asked. "I mean, we have plenty of those." Jack could tell she was thinking along the same lines he was. If they had to order specialized and expensive equipment to even _begin _making progress, surely the "kids" would be sticking around for quite some time.

"We're not sure. Since it drew power, basically electrical, from humans, we can't really be sure that a hazmat suit would be an effective barrier if it doesn't need direct flesh-to-device contact. If close proximity is enough, we're talking such a subatomic level here that the suits wouldn't do anything."

"So we really need that robot arm…" another scientist started hopefully.

Hammond waved a hand impatiently. "We'll discuss that later. What are you doing in the meantime?"

"We have it sealed off in a room and have scanned its dimensions into the computer so we can run simulations on it and everything without having to actually touch it… and the linguistics department is trying to translate the stuff Dr. Jackson was working on to see if there's anything more useful there…"

"How long?" Jack interrupted. They all looked at each other and shrugged, nobody wanting to be the one to tell him they had no idea. He got the gist however, and demanded, "Days? Weeks? Months? Just an estimate, here, people, I'm not going to hold you to it by the hour."

"Probably months," someone finally ventured.

"Maybe less," the head scientist offered hopefully. "If we can get safe, better access to it directly, maybe a few weeks…"

"All right, you'll get your robot arm and whatever else you need," Hammond promised, clearly disturbed by the vague but lengthy timetable. "In the meantime, Colonel O'Neill, you have your standing orders for the time being. Teal'c, you still have a few things we can't move on your schedule for now, but I'd like you to help your teammates out as much as possible. If we get to the point where the children are still here and O'Neill's knee is fully healed again we'll talk about adjusting the assignments for both of you at that time."

They both accepted their assignments, and Hammond dismissed them, knowing they didn't need to hear the rest of the details to be worked out between the science teams.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Meanwhile, in the VIP suite

Daniel woke up and sat up clumsily, rubbing his eyes sleepily and looking around the unfamiliar room in confusion. Not seeing any adults, but spotting Sam on the next bed over, he hurried over to her and scrambled up next to her, patting her arm frantically. "Sam? Sam, wake up!"

She rolled over and looked at him in confusion. "Whasswrong, Daniel?" she looked around and frowned. "Where's Colonel Jack?"

"I dunno, I never been in this room before, have you?"

"Nope, but there's all our stuff, I bet…" they heard the beeping they knew meant someone was swiping and ID to get into the room and for some reason, Sam leapt off the bed. "Come on, let's hide!"

Daniel was right on her heels as they scurried into the only open door in the room, shutting it quickly. It turned out to be a tiny bathroom with just a toilet, sink and mirror.

"Who is it, is it Colonel Jack or Uncle Teal'c?" Daniel whispered, peering at the closed door.

"I dunno," Sam whispered back.

"Uh, Daniel? Sam?" a grown up voice called hesitantly, knocking on the bathroom door.

"Go away, please!" Daniel called.

There was quiet laughter, and another voice said, "We were waiting outside for you to wake up."

"Where's Colonel O'Neill and Uncle Teal'c?" Sam called.

"They had to go to a meeting."

"Oh, okay, we'll just wait for them in here then, thanks!" Daniel called.

After a few moments, the first voice said, "I think maybe you guys should come out of the bathroom now."

They looked at each other and both silently agreed that this could turn out to be kind of a fun game in and of itself, after all. "NO!" they called stubbornly.

"Why not?"

"It's a _bathroom!" _Daniel called. "We need PRIVACY!"

"Oh, sorry, okay."

Giggling, they talked quietly for a few minutes, strategizing. Finally, the voice called back, "Uh, aren't you guys done yet?"

"Nope, we're still going!" Daniel called. Sam giggled, clamping her hands over her mouth, and ran over to flush the toilet.

"Are you even supposed to be in there alone?"

The second voice said, "Dude, they're four, I think it's okay."

Sam called, "It's okay, I got a brother, I know ALL about boy parts already!"

A chorus of strangled choking sounding laughs reached them. They both looked at each other and shrugged, not sure what was so funny.

"Uh, are you sure you don't need some… help, or something? I could call a nurse…"

"Nope, we're fine in here! You guys can just leave if you want," Sam called, spinning the toilet paper roll idly.

Daniel watched her and got an idea. "Hey, Sam, want me to show you how to make a mummy? I learned it from my parents when we were in Cairo."

"Where's that?" she asked in awe.

"Egypt."

"Wow. Cool! Yeah, show me how to make a mummy."

Oblivious to the fact that the two SFs left in charge of them were having a whispered argument about whether or not to force the bathroom door open, and whether or not Colonel O'Neill needed to be pulled from the meeting he was in, Sam and Daniel proceeded to have a great time, Daniel using three rolls of toilet paper to carefully wrap Sam from head to toe in toilet paper, not even pausing in their play when they had to call out through the door to assure the soldier-men on the other side they were "Still going" and "didn't need any help."

Teal'c and Jack went back to the VIP quarters, talking along the way.

"Is it your intention to keep the children here for the duration of their stay?" Teal'c asked. "A military facility seems poorly suited for such a purpose."

"Yeah, I know. I didn't want to bring it up in front of everyone, but I'm going to talk to Hammond soon about taking them home with me. They can't even go outside and play here, for crying out loud. They'll get stir crazy here pretty fast once the newness of their surroundings wears off."

Teal'c thought about that for a moment, then said, "You appear to be most proficient at raising young humans, O'Neill. It is fortunate for Major Carter and Daniel Jackson that you are here to care for them."

"Thanks, T," Jack said, surprised.

They had reached the VIP room. Jack swiped them in and was quick to spot the two SFs crouched by the bathroom door. His little charges were nowhere in sight.

"Gentlemen?" he asked pointedly.

"Uh, yes, sir," they snapped up to attention. "They woke up about twenty minutes ago and were in there by the time we got into the room."

"They've been in the bathroom for twenty minutes? Unsupervised?"

"They said they didn't need help and wanted privacy…" one guard tried to explain.

"And you listened to them? What's wrong with you?" Jack asked, banging on the door. "Sam! Daniel! Open up now, please."

There was some muffled whispering, some giggles, and Daniel finally opened the door with a big grin on his face. "Hi Colonel Jack, you're back!" He spotted Teal'c and smiled again. "Hi Uncle Teal'c!"

"Greetings, young Daniel Jackson. What have you been doing in the restroom for such a lengthy amount of time? "

"Playing," he shrugged.

"Playing what?" Jack asked.

"Mummy," he answered, stepping aside and opening the door the rest of the way, so they could see the tiny room's other occupant.

Sam was wrapped head to toe in toilet paper, random strips dangling off where it had broken. The top of her head had obviously been hardest to wrap because there was so much piled there it looked more like a turban than anything else, and several strips hung down. One eye was mostly covered as well.

"Hi!" she offered with a huge grin.

"Why didn't you open the door for the Airmen?" Jack demanded, torn between amusement and exasperation.

Sam shrugged. "It was more fun not to."

He supposed that probably made perfect sense to a four year old and had to just start laughing. "Okay, you two, a room full of new toys and all you wanted to play with was the toilet paper?" he asked, chuckling as he started helping them disentangle Sam from the many layers of paper. "You could have saved the Air Force a nice chunk of change if you'd mentioned that when we were at the store earlier."

They looked like they didn't understand him at all.

"We were scared when we woke up and you were gone and we didn't know where we were," Daniel admitted quickly, once Jack had shoved the giant wad of toilet paper into a corner of the bathroom, not quite sure what to do with it.

"I'm sorry," Jack said sincerely, squeezing his shoulder lightly. "I had to go to a meeting. But if you had listened to the SFs, they would have told you that, and brought you to me if you were upset and didn't want to wait here for us."

"Oh." they exchanged sheepish smiles.

Gasping suddenly, Sam drew everyone's attention. "You said we were going to the toy store!" Sam realized suddenly, an accusatory note in her voice as though she was discovering they had been tricked.

"I was driving there but you guys both fell asleep," Jack explained. "So I decided to bring you back here for a nap first. We'll have a late lunch and then go to the toy store after that. If you guys still want to go, of course."

"Yes!"

"We do, we do!"

He chuckled. "Well, lucky you, Uncle Teal'c, you can come with us to the toy store now!"

"Yay!" Sam and Daniel both chorused enthusiastically, hurrying over to Teal'c excitedly. "It'll be so much fun, Uncle Teal'c! you're coming aren't you?"

He looked down at both of them and his eyes twinkled. "Indeed, I will accompany you, children. I suspect we will attract far less attention than the last time I accompanied Colonel O'Neill to a toy store."

"Hey, what the hell! You weren't supposed to tell Carter or Daniel about that!" Jack reminded.

Teal'c merely shrugged and smiled, giving into Sam's insistent pleas that she be given a piggy back ride to the commissary for lunch.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Luckily, the lunchtime meal consisted of far less tempting sugary offers than breakfast. Both kids were happy enough with the French fries available, but neither would touch their "Salisbury steak…" Not even when Jack tried to convince them it was just a hamburger without the bun. Daniel bravely licked his portion, but the face he made caused Sam to shove her plate away in disgust, and neither could be convinced to try it with ketchup or anything else on offer after that.

Sure that if he let them only eat fries for lunch, Janet would revoke his temporary custody assignment, Jack went back up to the line and convinced one of the Airmen working there to go in the back and fix a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids.

They ate satisfactorily after that, so much so that Jack gave into their repeated pleas for dessert. Daniel ate cookies and Sam, unsurprisingly, insisted on having blue jello.

After lunch was done, it was nearly two. Jack and Teal'c loaded them back into Jack's truck, both kids talking excitedly amongst themselves about all the things they hoped to find at the toy store.

"It is fortunate that they appear to be close friends already, despite the fact that from their perspectives, they have only just met," Teal'c commented quietly to Jack as they drove to the toy store.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "I wonder if there's some kind of leftover feelings, like they somehow know they know each other, and all of us, already. Or if they're just two peas in a pod and always have been."

Teal'c turned to look at the children for several moments, then turned back around and stated. "They do not in any way resemble legumes to me, O'Neill."

Jack chuckled and said, "Never mind."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: There's some language in this chapter. It's towards the end.

Thank you all for reading and for those who have reviewed, thank you for the encouragement!

Ch 8

At the toy store, Sam fell in love.

They had two full carts of stuff and were close to done. Jack had decided the kids needed bikes, remembering that Daniel had once told him that he had never had a bike as a kid because his parents had moved from dig to dig so often before they died. He had decided that bikes would be their special surprise for their good behavior with the police man earlier, and the kids were thrilled with the suggestion.

He knew they would need training wheels, of course, and that Hammond probably wouldn't be too thrilled with him bringing bikes onto the base, but he was hoping to take them home soon anyway. Maybe the threat of them tearing around the base on bikes would be extra incentive for Hammond to let them leave, Jack thought with a smile as he steered them to the bike section at the back of the store.

It was next to the bikes that Sam spotted the little battery-powered cars and vehicles. She stopped dead in her tracks, staring with her mouth wide open and her eyes looking impossibly large, and Jack realized that those things hadn't really been around when she was four the first time… but now that she was here, of COURSE she would find them fascinating.

"Sam? You okay there?" he asked in amusement when she hadn't moved a muscle for some time. He was peripherally aware of Daniel chattering away to Teal'c over at the racks of bikes, and knew the other man was helping the little boy. He crouched down next to her at her level, nudging her lightly. "Earth to Sam?"

"Colonel Jack, what _are _those?" she asked in awe.

"Uh, they're little tiny trucks and cars for kids to drive around in," he tried to explain.

"You don't have to pedal them?"

"Nope."

"Do you take them to the gas station?" she asked, looking puzzled.

He laughed. "No, they're battery powered."

"Must take a _lot _of batteries," she mused.

Knowing she was thinking of the batteries that went in flashlights, he said, "It's a different kind of battery, honey." He took a moment to appreciate the irony of trying to explain a machine to Carter. Only the fact that she was four made it even possible for him to explain it to her satisfaction… and he wasn't entirely sure he would be able to right now anyway.

"Sam!" Daniel called excitedly, getting both their attention. "Look at my bike! Come on, pick one out!"

Sam took another long look at the trucks and cars and then smiled and ran over to Daniel, excitedly admiring the bike he was sitting on, with Teal'c's help for balance.

Jack hung back, chewing his lip as he watched Teal'c and Daniel helping her with her bike selection. The battery-powered vehicles were ridiculously expensive considering that these guys weren't going to be little for long - hopefully. And yet… it wasn't often he got to make her, or anyone on his team for that matter - so happy with something so relatively simple and easy. He imagined the look on Hammond's face seeing Sam careening around in the vehicle with Daniel in the passenger seat clinging on for dear life and grinned to himself.

Then he watched the kids again. Teal'c was trying to entice her onto a girl's bike - pink, with streamers coming out of the handles and a flowery basket - and she was scowling and shaking her head firmly, arms crossed. He chuckled. Teal'c should have known better.

Ultimately, it was the fact that despite how much she'd obviously loved the things more than anything else in the entire store, and yet _hadn't _asked him for it, that made up his mind. She was just too darn sweet and cute for her own good, and Hammond would just have to understand that!

He assumed she wouldn't want the Barbie car. He was betting she would love the motorcycle, but he wanted something Daniel could ride in, because he damn well wasn't buying two of them! He decided the Jeep would be a good fit and grabbed the little slip to take to the register. This was perfect, because he could surprise her with it.

Then he went over to help hurry the bike selection process along. "Teal'c, she doesn't have to get a girls' bike if she doesn't want one," he said, grabbing a helmet and putting it on Daniel's head experimentally.

"The tags state these are the bicycles for young females, O'Neill," Teal'c stated firmly.

"Yeah, but it's not a law, T, it's just marketing. Come on, Sam, which one do you want?" he asked, putting the pink one back on the rack.

Grinning, she ran over to a flashy red boy's bike that had flames all over it. Laughing, Jack shrugged. "Suit yourself. Danny boy, you happy with that one?" he asked.

Daniel had picked out a yellow and black bike. He was grinning ear to ear under the helmet Jack had plopped on his head. "Yes, thank you!"

Five minutes later, helmets and pads were stacked on the top of the shopping carts' contents and Jack had a fistful of tags for the bikes and the surprise Jeep. As they waited in the checkout line and he watched the two children huddled excitedly over one of the toys they'd picked out, looking at the back of the package at all its features, he started to feel a little guilty about getting the Jeep without a surprise for Daniel.

The thing was, Carter was easy. She liked things that went fast. Always had, always would. Daniel's adult interests were harder to translate into children's toys, and Jack just couldn't think of something the little boy would love as much as Sam would love that Jeep.

He determined to present it to both of them as a toy to share, even though he knew Sam would like it more than Daniel would. Then, hopefully after spending a bit more time with them, Jack would be able to think of something that Daniel would like just as much. And, he reminded himself, they were really both getting bikes because he wanted Daniel to have one. With all that in mind, he set about having Teal'c distract the kids while he paid for everything, using the card Hammond had given him for the bulk of the purchases but buying the bikes and Jeep himself. He and an employee loaded the big stuff into the back of the truck first while Teal'c kept the kids and the carts up at the entrance to the store and waited for Jack to come get them.

Bags of stuff, children, and Jaffa loaded back into the car, Jack drove them all back to the mountain, Sam and Daniel chattering nonstop about all their new toys, arguing light-heartedly over what they were going to play with first.

"T, can you take the kids to the gym or something to play for a while while I get everything set up in the room?" Jack asked quietly so the kids couldn't hear as he drove.

"It would be my pleasure, O'Neill," Teal'c agreed. "I am most anxious to try Samantha Carter's 'jump rope.'"

"Right," Jack said. He suddenly had a mental image of Teal'c as a four year old and was very glad it was Daniel who had been in her lab with her at the time of the accident. He imagined a tiny Jaffa boy used to spending most of his time outdoors and roughhousing probably would have wreaked holy terror in the SGC in no time flat.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The kids were thrilled with the idea of playing with Teal'c in the gym, and bounced around the side of the truck chattering eagerly about all they were going to do with him while Jack, in the bed of the truck, rummaged through the bags looking for toys that would be good to play with in the gym.

"Are we gonna ride our bikes in there?" Sam asked eagerly as he handed Teal'c a jump rope and a Nerf football.

"I have to put them together first," Jack explained.

"Oh," she said. She thought for a minute and asked hopefully, "Can I help you put mine together?"

Jack should have known she would want to do that. He thought for a minute. The only problem with it was that it would ruin the surprise of the Jeep. "Well, here are the choices," he said, checking to make sure he had Daniel and Teal'c's attention too. "If you go play with Teal'c now, I will try to get the bikes ready in time for you to ride them a little before dinner. Or if you want, I can save your bike to put together after dinner, Sam, and you can ride them in the morning."

She gave the decision more thought than Jack had ever seen a four year old think about anything. "Come on Sam I want to ride them today," Daniel finally wheedled.

"Okay," she agreed.

"Yaaaaaaaay!" Daniel cheered happily, hugging her awkwardly, since they were both still squirming excitedly. "Thanks, Sam!"

"You're welcome," she replied magnanimously.

"Hey, I'm the one putting them together," Jack objected light-heartedly. "Way to hog all the credit, there, Carter."

She just gave him a smile with her nose wrinkled. "You're funny sometimes, Colonel."

"Indeed," Teal'c interjected quickly, obviously deciding to hurry things along on his own. "Come, children. We will go to the gym."

The kids chorused goodbyes to Jack and quickly hurried after Teal'c, running beside him to keep up with his huge strides.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack got several SFs to help him unload most of the stuff they'd bought, although he did transfer several bags of toys to the cab of his truck and leave them there, still hoping Hammond would let the kids go home with him soon and not wanting to have to repack EVERYTHING right away. He could always come back for them later if there was something in there they wanted, but they had more than enough new stuff to keep them occupied for the night.

He also decided to get Siler to help him put the bikes together, so there would be plenty of time for the kids to ride them before dinner. He started opening up the huge box containing the Jeep while Siler started on Sam's bike.

"Wow, that thing looks awesome," Siler called.

"Yeah," Jack frowned, reading the instructions. "Damn, you have to charge it overnight the first time." He looked around for somewhere to hide it and finally set it up in the corner behind the little couch, plugged in to charge. He covered it carefully with a blanket, then attempted to hide the suspiciously lumpy blanket behind a large potted plant.

Siler eyed the set-up skeptically but respectfully didn't say anything. Jack caught the look anyway, "Yeah I know it's not going to fool them. I just need them to leave it alone until tomorrow. Shouldn't be harder than getting them to leave wrapped Christmas presents alone."

"Whatever you say, sir," Siler said, tightening the training wheel he was working on with a final twist of the wrist.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Teal'c was intrigued by the behavior of his two youngest teammates, who now deserved that designation by a considerably larger margin than before. Their supply of energy seemed disproportionate to their size.

Upon entering the gym, Teal'c had cleared away the moveable punching bags from the area they usually occupied, so that there was a large open space for the children to exert themselves. After running around to examine all of the workout equipment - much of which was currently occupied by SG-12 - the children ran over to him for entertainment.

When Daniel Jackson tripped on his way over and went sprawling face first on the ground, Teal'c decided it would be wise to spread out the sparring mats before they began playing, despite the fact that the boy scrambled back to his feet quickly insisting he was fine. One could never be too careful, particularly where Daniel Jackson was concerned.

The large blue mats in place, Teal'c asked the children what they wanted to play.

Sam and Daniel were having the time of their lives, shrieking and laughing as they ran around the gym. They had played tag for a while, but when Teal'c was 'it' it was so much more fun to get caught than anything else, because he scooped them up so effortlessly and when cajoled could be talked into tossing them up in the air. They screamed to be tossed higher and higher, until Teal'c, who always caught them gently, refused to throw them any higher, expressing "fear for their safety."

Sam also got him to swing her around and around in a circle until she was so dizzy she almost threw up and had to ask him to stop, knowing that if she _did _throw up he probably wouldn't play with her anymore and she would probably be sent back to Doctor Janet.

They played catch with the football, but that turned into dodge ball which was particularly challenging with one ball for three people and quickly also degenerated into another game of tag where you could also be pegged by the ball.

Daniel got caught trying to climb on the exercise equipment and was repeatedly pulled off by Teal'c until a warning that Teal'c would "Use Samantha Carter's new jump rope to bind you in place if you cannot remember to leave the equipment alone" stopped the little boy from further exploration.

Sam tried to teach Teal'c how to use the jump rope but it turned out she really wasn't very good at it herself yet, and the rope was really too short for Teal'c to use effectively. It lay forgotten in the middle of the mat as Sam convinced Daniel they should start a wrestling match with Teal'c by both jumping on him at the same time.

They shrieked with delight when he lifted them both easily, and that was how Jack found them in the gym - Teal'c standing in the middle of the blue mats with a four year old team member dangling from each massive bicep.

"Well, looks like you guys are having plenty of fun on your own," he called, pausing in his awkward entrance as he wheeled in two tiny bikes, one with each hand, crouched awkwardly as he walked. "I guess I'll just go find some other little kids to give these to!"

"No, no we want them!" they yelled. Daniel abruptly let go of Teal'c's arm and dropped three feet to the ground, stumbling slightly but staying mainly upright. Alarmed, Teal'c quickly set Sam down before she could copy him, and the two kids scrambled over to Jack, meeting him halfway.

All their pads and helmets were hanging off their bikes. "Okay, who's ridden a bike before?" Jack asked, plopping Sam's helmet on her head.

They looked at each other and shrugged.

"I sat on it in the store and Uncle Teal'c pushed me a little," Daniel said, fiddling with the chin strap on his helmet.

"And I have a tricycle at home but I don't really ride it anymore because it's for babies," Sam said. "I tried to ride Mark's bike but my feet wouldn't reach and anyway he punched me real hard when he caught me messing with it."

Frowning at that thought, Jack crouched down in front of her and started strapping elbow pads in place on her tiny arms.

"Why do we have to wear all these things?" she asked, watching Teal'c strapping knee pads on Daniel.

"Because you're not breaking anything on my watch," Jack said firmly.

Five minutes later, they were decked out in elbow and knee pads, and wrist guards, plus helmets. Jack knew it was a little extreme for bikes - they were actually skating pads he'd purchased - but he wasn't taking any chances with these two. Hell, if it were up to him he'd have them in full hockey gear… or maybe wrapped in bubble wrap.

"How are we supposed to move in this stuff?" Daniel asked.

"Can you bend your knees?" Jack asked, holding the bike steady since Sam was already trying to climb onto it.

"Yeah," he said, after trying.

"Then you're fine, stop complaining. You'll be thanking me when you don't get hurt."

Cumbersome pads notwithstanding, they were soon both riding around the cleared space, trying to race each other in the confined area.

"Can't we go outside, please, Colonel?" Sam asked hopefully after half an hour. "Where we can ride faster and in a straight line longer?"

"Not here, Sam, I'm sorry. Maybe tomorrow. Are you guys hungry?"

"Yes, sir!"

"I'm starving to death!" Daniel added dramatically, coming to a stop next to Sam.

"Okay, let's go put the bikes up for now and go eat," Jack decided.

"Can we ride our bikes to dinner?" Daniel asked.

Hammond would probably be in there…

"Ah, I'm gonna have to say no to that one too," Jack said. They looked so disappointed. "… but you can ride them back to our room," he relented.

"Yay!" Sam said excitedly, while Daniel called, "Thanks, Colonel Jack!" and started pedaling. "Race you, Sam!"

"No fair!" She yelled indignantly, taking off after him, pedaling with all her might.

Despite the fact that he knew they'd have to stop at the elevator, Jack still hurried after them, Teal'c following.

The race resumed once the elevator let them out on the proper floor, and they took off towards the VIP suite again, Sam in the lead now that they had gotten an even start. Jack followed more slowly now that they could see their finish line, and was just thinking to himself that he was glad they hadn't bumped into anyone who would go tell the General when, of course, the General himself came out of the VIP suite.

His sudden appearance right at their destination startled the kids, who tried to veer away and ended up crashing into each other instead. Bikes and kids all tangled into a heap on the ground three feet in front of Hammond, who hurried over to them and knelt down quickly, trying to pull the howling kids to their feet.

Daniel was howling that his arm hurt, but Sam was crying, "MY BIKE!" so Jack was pretty sure that at least one of them was just fine. It turned out that they both were. The pads had done their job and the kids were startled and might have a few bruises but were relatively unscathed. The bikes were also in good shape.

Once that had been sorted out and they weren't crying anymore, Hammond said, "Colonel O'Neill, I hope you have a good explanation for letting these children loose on bikes on my base. This is no place for bike riding!"

"Well, see I wanted to talk to you about that, sir," he said with what he hoped was a winning smile. "I wanted to talk to you about taking the kids home with me tomorrow."

"Yeah, can we Uncle George?" Sam asked eagerly.

"Please?" Daniel added hopefully.

Hammond looked down at the kids and frowned. "Teal'c, why don't you take them into their room and get them washed up for dinner."

"As you wish, General Hammond," Teal'c said, picking up a bike easily in each hand and herding them through the door.

Once they were alone, Hammond said, "I'm down here because I was looking for you, Jack. I got a report that you got three tickets this morning?"

Jack grimaced. "Yeah, the kids were distracting me and I ran a stop sign… then the cop saw they weren't in car seats."

Hammond sighed. "This is going to take a little cleaning up, since you now have tickets for two children who don't officially exist. And that is a prime example of why I'm hesitant to let them off the base. I'm afraid too many questions could be raised…"

"But they're kids, sir. This isn't a very kid-friendly environment. As you yourself just pointed out."

"I know," Hammond sighed. "Okay. For now, it's a no. let me think about it a little more. But in the meantime you do your part to keep them safe and under control while they're here. That means no bike riding in the hallway."

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

"Uncle George, did you come down here to have dinner with me?" Sam asked hopefully as the three of them came back out into the hall.

He looked down at the hopeful look on her cute little face and couldn't help but chuckle. "I sure did, Sammy. And I have a surprise for you."

"What?" she asked eagerly. "It's for Daniel too, right? He's my new best friend." She grabbed Daniel's hand as though that would ensure he was included in the surprise. Daniel beamed.

"That's nice, sweetheart. And yes, it's for Daniel too."

They both grinned eagerly.

"What is it?"

"I heard you didn't much care for breakfast or lunch, but I think you're going to like dinner much better."

"What are we having?" Sam asked, taking his hand.

"Spaghetti," Hammond told her.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" she yelled in delight. "My favorite!"

"I love it too!" Daniel squealed, as he ran after her towards the elevator.

"Wow, nobody has ever been that happy to go eat in the commissary before," Jack commented as the three adult men headed towards the elevator as well.

"I believe you are correct, O'Neill," Teal'c said after giving it some thought. "Although the spaghetti is in fact the superior dish served by this facility."

Jack chuckled and swiped his card for the elevator.

"I want to push the button," Daniel said quickly as they filed inside.

Shrugging, Jack told him what number to push. "Whatever floats your boat."

Sam, not to be outdone, pushed the button once it was already lit up… then kept pushing it. "Go faster, god dammit!" she muttered to the elevator.

"Samantha Grace Carter!" Hammond bellowed, shocked.

She turned to him with a guilty look on her face. "Uh-oh. Sorry, Uncle George."

"Where did you hear that language, young lady?"

"Uh…" she hesitated.

"Probably from me," Jack admitted reluctantly. "Although I can't remember saying that specifically recently, but she may have overheard me a couple of times today."

"Colonel, need I remind you that children have very impressionable minds, and therefore it is wise that you think before you speak when you are around them? Particularly my goddaughter?"

"Yes, sir."

"And Sam, you know you're not supposed to use words like that, don't you," Hammond added.

"Yes, sir. I'm very sorry."

She looked up at him with sad, huge eyes and Jack was sure that if Hammond could resist that face and those eyes, he was made of stone. Sure enough, he couldn't. He hugged her gently as the elevator dinged. "It's okay, sweetheart. Just try not to do it again."

"Yes, sir," she repeated.

She cheered up in the commissary line once they were within sight of the spaghetti, and by the time Jack and Teal'c were carefully carrying two very heavily laden trays over to their usual table, she and Daniel were chatting animatedly again about who was going to eat the most and what they were going to do after dinner.

Janet joined them before they had dug in, as Jack was setting a bowl of spaghetti and a plate of garlic bread and broccoli (optimistically) in front of each kid.

Jack didn't miss the fact that she surveyed each child VERY carefully, obviously looking for injuries. "They're fine, Doc."

"Why is their hair like that?" she demanded.

Jack glanced at them and shrugged. "Helmet hair, no biggie." it was a bit of a mess. Both kids had gotten sweaty riding their bikes and playing with Teal'c, so the helmets had sort of plastered wet hair to their heads in some pretty messy, random ways.

"Yeah, don't worry, Doctor Janet," Sam said sweetly, taking a big bite of spaghetti. "We crashed our bikes but we had so much pads on it didn't even hurt a bit!"

"Crashed?" Janet demanded sharply, then added, "Wait, what bikes?"

"Colonel Jack got us bikes because we played the quiet game so good when the police man pulled us over," Daniel explained.

Fraiser raised an eyebrow at Jack. "Police man?"

"Yeah, you know, you're the only one here with a kid, Doc, you could have told me they were supposed to be in car seats!"

"Cassie never used a car seat!" Janet argued.

"People," Hammond interrupted, wiping Sam's chin with a napkin - both kids were already liberally covered in sauce. Jack thought it was pointless to wipe her face mid-meal, but didn't bother voicing the thought to the General.

"And you don't have to keep showing up at meal times to check that I'm feeding them," Jack added, a bit hurt by the fact that nobody seemed to think he could keep them alive without help. "We're doing just fine on our own, just good old… well, halfway not-so-old SG1."

Of course, at that very moment, Daniel spilled his milk and screamed, "Oh, fuck!"

Half the commissary turned to look at them, some alarmed, some amused.

"Daniel!" Jack exclaimed, as Hammond bellowed, "COLONEL O'NEILL!" and Sam said in a bossy voice, "Daniel, you're not opposed to say that, you dumbass!"

Jack groaned and dropped his fork. "Okay, I know those last two didn't come from me."

"I believe O'Neill is correct," Teal'c interjected unexpectedly.

Hammond and Fraiser both stared at him. "Well I know they didn't hear it from you, Teal'c," Hammond said.

"You are correct, General Hammond. However, when we entered the gym today, SG-12 was finishing up their exercise regimen. I'm sure you are aware of the so-called colorful language frequently employed by that particular team."

That was putting it mildly, Jack thought. SG-12 was notoriously the most foul-mouthed unit in the mountain… by a long shot.

Hammond stood up and the whole commissary went silent. "All right, people! In light of what I just heard I'm instituting a new policy here, effective as long as we have our two young visitors around. I'm going to take a leaf out of my daughter's book and start a 'Swear Jar.' ANYONE caught swearing in the presence of Samantha Carter or Daniel Jackson will pay them each a dollar, immediately."

There were some amused looks and some good-natured grumbling after the chorus of 'yes sirs' that followed his order.

As he sat down, he noticed the kids grinning ear to ear and added, "And for every time one of you swears, you're going to lose a dollar."

They gulped. "Yes, sir."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Sorry this one took a while to get out. My grandfather has been sick for a long time and passed away yesterday. I will be out of the country for the funeral for several days so I wanted to get what I had done posted since it will probably be a while before I have the next part done. It may also be a while after that before I am in the right mindset to write a funny story. Thank you all for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy the story.

Ch 9

The rest of dinner passed uneventfully and pleasantly. The kids loved the spaghetti and wolfed down large portions, getting sauce all over their faces and shirts in the process, and they each earned their first dollar when someone spilled coffee at a nearby table and let out a loud expletive. Under Hammond's stern glare, the offending Captain had handed a crumpled bill to each delighted kid, and everyone else saw that the General had not been joking and determined to watch their mouths.

The spaghetti mess on top of the fact that the kids were pretty ripe to begin with from their afternoon of playing meant that they definitely needed to get cleaned up when they were done. Jack thought that fell under Fraiser's purview. She WAS their doctor, after all. "So, Doc, why don't you take the kids for their baths and I'll come get them for bed in, what, an hour?" he suggested hopefully.

She eyed him suspiciously, but then took pity on all of them. "All right, come on guys, let's go get you two cleaned up," she said, smiling at them both. "I'll bring them to you in the VIP suite, sir."

They grumbled a bit but obeyed, following her out the door.

Jack took advantage of his free time to grab a quick shower for himself. He had just settled in on the couch in the VIP suite, enjoying the few moments of peace and quiet, and was going to relax until the kids showed up when the phone rang.

He picked it up with a frown, knowing something must have happened with the kids. "O'Neill."

"Colonel, you'd better come to the infirmary," he heard Janet say over someone's wailing. She said something else he didn't quite catch, but he assumed it didn't matter much what she was trying to say - the screaming definitely told him he needed to be there, whatever the problem was.

He high-tailed it to the infirmary and heard the screaming as soon as he got off the elevator. One of the kids sounded like they were being murdered. He hurried into the infirmary and quickly took in the scene in front of him. Daniel was standing there wrapped in a towel, dripping water everywhere and looking very worried.

Janet was just finishing wrestling a screaming, yowling, flailing, and kicking Sam Carter into her new nightgown - the one he hadn't been a bit surprised she'd gravitated towards instantly. The short-sleeved thing was navy and covered in yellow stars and moons.

"What the hell is going on?" Jack demanded.

The wailing stopped long enough for Sam to notice him and scramble away from Janet and head straight for him, screaming once more as she practically scrambled up him like she was climbing a tree. He caught her under the armpits and she latched onto him, muffling her sobs in his tee-shirt. Having no idea what could have set her off so much, he doubted he'd be able to hear an explanation until he got her quiet, because seriously, that volume was just not human! He was surprised the emergency klaxons weren't going off.

"Sam, calm down, breathe," he tried, rubbing her back.

"She got scareded in the shower," Daniel tried to explain, shouting with his hands over his ears, as Janet approached him with his new dinosaur pajamas.

Scared in the shower? Okay, Jack definitely didn't see that one coming.

He sat down on the edge of the nearest bed and murmured to the still-howling girl quietly while she sobbed, brushing her hair away from her face, frowning when his hand got all soapy - she still had shampoo in her hair, apparently. . He rubbed her back instead and gradually her sobbing died down until she was just clinging to his shirt tiredly and sniffling and whimpering occasionally.

"Sam, what happened? The shower scared you?"

"I don't like the water on my head!" she cried. "I always take baths at home I don't like showers!"

"I can see that," he said mildly, wondering how long that phase of her life had lasted. "But we don't really have bath tubs here, honey, it's a military base."

"That's what Dr. Janet said," she whined.

He gave her a few more minutes to calm down further, then said, "What are we gonna do about your hair? It's all soapy. I guess the doc gave up on rinsing you out amidst all the screeching?"

"I dunno, I guess. I wasn't payin much attention to her," Sam admitted.

"I can imagine," Jack said. "Okay, come on, we'll let her rinse you out in the sink. It'll be just like in the tub."

"Noooo," Sam whined, clinging to his shirt more tightly.

"Sam you can't walk around with shampoo in your hair forever," he tried to explain gently.

She sniffled and rubbed her nose. "You do it. I don't want _her _to do it."

"Okay, come on."

He picked her up and took her over to the sink, trying to remember exactly how Sara had done this with Charlie. He set her down on the counter next to the sink and looked around, grabbing an empty beaker and a towel, completely oblivious to the fact that Janet and Daniel were both watching with amusement and interest, respectively. He folded the towel to be a neck rest on the side of the sink and switched the water on, waiting for it to get warm. Sam was eyeing it warily. "It's okay, your head's not going under the water," he promised.

Janet, seeing what he was planning, brought the shampoo over. "I didn't get any further than globbing it on top of her head," she explained apologetically. "I'm so sorry, sweetie, I had no idea you would be so scared," she added to Sam.

"I _don't_ like showers," Sam said firmly.

"Clearly. Hey, why don't Daniel and I go find you guys some hot chocolate," she offered with a warm smile.

"With cookies too?" Sam asked, rubbing her eye.

"Sure," Janet said.

"You hypocrite," Jack muttered to her as she led the worried looking little boy out of the infirmary. He turned back to Sam. "Okay, Miss Carter, step into my Salon."

She laughed but he could tell she was still a little nervous. Still, she let him scoot her into position so she was lying on the counter with her head hanging into the sink. He used the beaker to pour the water so it didn't get in her face or startle her by pelting her, and she was fine. He washed her hair carefully, rinsing out all the suds, which took forever with the beaker, and finally helped her sit up. "There, all done. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

She shook her head, sending water droplets flying everywhere. He set her back down on the bed he'd used before and grabbed one of the dry towels Fraiser had brought in. "Not scared of towels, are ya?" he asked lightly.

Giggling, she shook her head, laughing underneath the towel as he made a show out of roughly towel-drying her hair. When he finally stopped, and tossed the towel aside, he laughed. Her damp hair was sticking up in a hundred directions. She reminded him of the little Nox boy who had been so taken with her all those years ago.

He handed her the brush Fraiser had used on Daniel already, and started mopping up some of the water he'd splashed everywhere, not wanting anyone to slip.

"Uh, Colonel?" she called after a minute. "I need some more help I think."

He turned back to her in alarm and groaned. The hairbrush was stuck in her hair, sticking out comically at a forty-five degree angle.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"And then we saw all these things called video games, and Colonel Jack said he has some at his house and if we get to go there we can play them…" Daniel was chattering animatedly to Janet, having hardly stopped to breathe in telling her all about their day as she had taken him to the commissary to fetch the snack they were after, once she had promised him Sam would be okay.

Janet, who of course knew Daniel to be one of the most talkative adult men she'd ever met, was still taken aback at the non-stop barrage of information she was being presented with from the child version.

"And Sam was saying it was weird how none of the toys are the same and everything is different here, like way more com… com… complicated, and Jack just said it was a really _special _toy store. Can I have a cookie now, before Sam?" he asked hopefully, surprising her by the abrupt change in topic. Realizing he probably couldn't eat and talk at the same time, she handed him a cookie wordlessly as they got back on the elevator.

The cookie kept him occupied and they entered the infirmary silently. Janet was glad they were able to enter without being noticed, and really, really wished she had a camera all of a sudden, at the sight that greeted them.

She doubted she had ever seen Jack O'Neill concentrating so hard on something in all the years she'd known him. He was standing behind one of the infirmary beds, bent awkwardly over the blonde head in front of him, carefully combing out the mass of wet tangles as gingerly as if he were diffusing a bomb. The little girl in front of him couldn't have presented a more different picture from when Janet had left. Looking completely calm and supremely unconcerned with the current state of her hair - which had to be a tribute to the Colonel's gentleness, Janet was sure - she was in turn brushing the mane and tail of a stuffed unicorn with a similar look of concentration to the one Jack was wearing.

"Sam, I bringed you a cookie!" Daniel called, breaking the silence before Janet had a chance to figure out how to get a picture of this. Maybe the security cameras…

Sam looked over at them and grinned, all traced of her earlier trauma completely forgotten. "Good, cuz all that crying made me hungry!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After the cookies and hot chocolate, Janet only let them leave the infirmary after O'Neill promised her he had bought them toothbrushes today and they were in the bathroom in the VIP suite, just waiting to be used. She was glad to see that between O'Neill calming Sam down, and Janet bribing the girl with the bedtime snack, Sam didn't seem to be harboring any resentment towards Janet for the horror scene that had been the attempted shower, as long as Janet kept a respectable distance, that is. After Daniel hugged Janet goodnight cheerfully and gave her a somewhat chocolatey kiss on the cheek as well, Sam had even bravely followed suit with a hug of her own.

Jack led them back to the VIP suite. As soon as they were inside, Sam asked, "Where's Uncle Teal'c?"

"He… went to his own room, to go to bed," Jack said, deciding kel-no-reem loosely fell under the category of 'going to bed.'

"But we didn't say night-night to him," Daniel said, looking worried.

"It's okay, you'll see him in the morning. He's a big boy he's used to going to bed all on his own," Jack smirked.

"He IS big," Sam agreed, as though that settled the matter. "But we don't have to go to bed right now, do we Colonel? I'm not tired at all!"

He looked down at her hopeful smile and sighed. The snack had clearly boosted both their energy stores. "What do you guys want to do?"

They looked at each other and grinned.

Twenty minutes later, Jack felt like he was about to fall asleep himself, despite the fact that he was trying desperately to stay awake to keep an eye on them. Daniel was happily building away with Legos. Sam had played with him for a while but quickly grew bored with the complex city he was attempting to construct. She'd wandered off to the new toys and stopped dead upon seeing the lumpy blanket hidden poorly behind the sofa and potted plant. "What is _that?_" she demanded, pointing.

Scrambling over to her quickly, Jack steered her away. "That is a surprise that you aren't going to see until tomorrow morning."

"Aww… please?" she asked hopefully, eyes pleading with him.

"Nope. For once that face isn't going to work on me. Now come on, you've got lots of new stuff over here, what do you want to play with?"

Her eyes lit up. "Want to have a tea party?"

He stared at her as though certain she must be joking. Fraiser had put her up to this just to get embarrassing footage of him on the security cameras, or something. Had to be. No way Sam Carter, at any age, wanted to play tea party.

Apparently he was wrong.

Five minutes later he was sitting on the floor around the coffee table, drinking imaginary tea from a tiny purple plastic cup, seated across from a well-brushed unicorn and a stuffed dog, Daniel's stuffed dinosaur to his right and Sam to his left, pouring imaginary tea and offering seconds on imaginary cookies to all the stuffed animals.

He was so giving her crap about this when she was big again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack finally found a way out of the tea party, pointing out that if he "drank" any more tea so late at night he would never get to sleep. Pleased with his reasoning, it seemed, Sam agreed that the party could end, and Jack noticed that it actually was getting rather late when he glanced at his watch while she cleaned up.

It took ten minutes to get Daniel away from the Legos, which was actually an improvement in many respects on how long it usually took to tear Daniel away from something. They left his construction intact, of course, so he could work on it more the next day.

Jack sent them to the bathroom to brush their teeth, then belatedly remembered the mummy incident and hurried after them to supervise. Once they'd brushed their teeth, he tucked them each into bed in the two twin beds closest to each other - his own being a bit farther away, up against the opposite wall.

"Can you read us a story please?" Daniel asked hopefully.

"Please?" Sam called from her own bed.

"Sure." He went over to the small pile of books they'd got that day and selected one. He sat down on the foot of Daniel's bed and started to read. "The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another…"

"I want to see the pictures too!" Sam insisted.

He stood up between the beds and tried to hold the book in front of himself and read it upside down. "The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another…"

"Now I can't see them!" Daniel complained.

Jack looked at him, then at Sam. They were the same distance away, just at different angles. "Sam, can you see the pictures now?" he asked.

"Uh-huh."

"Uh-oh. Daniel, did Dr. Janet check your eyes?" Jack asked, getting concerned.

"She looked in em with a flashlight thingy. Why?"

Jack sighed. "We're going to have a talk with her tomorrow. You might be getting some glasses, buddy."

"Glasses? Like my Mom wears?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Cool!"

"Do I get them too?" Sam asked.

"You don't need them, Sam. They'll help Daniel see better."

"I don't see right?" he asked, looking a little concerned.

"You see just fine. They'll just help you see better, if you need them. In the meantime…" Wanting to distract them from endless questions about glasses, he scooped Sam up out of her bed and dumped her next to Daniel on his. "There, now you can both see the pictures."

He sat down on the edge of the bed and waited until they had both snuggled down comfortably, then held the book up so they could clearly both see the pictures, and started the book for the third time.

By the time he was finished, they were both blinking drowsily. "Can we have another one? Please?" Sam asked.

"Not tonight, or we'll run all out of books," he said lightly. "Come on, let's get you back in your own bed."

Before he could move her, she hugged Daniel rather tightly and awkwardly around the neck, smacking him loudly on the cheek. "G'night, Daniel, I love you!"

"I love you too Sam, night night," Daniel replied around a big yawn, hugging her back.

Jack moved Sam back to her own bed and tried to tuck her in, but she was clinging to his neck as well, hugging tight. "G'night Colonel O'Neill! I love you."

Really, really hoping his face didn't show just how weird he was finding it to hear that, from her, in her current condition, he returned the hug gently and tucked her in. "Goodnight, Sam, sleep well." He slid back over to Daniel, who was holding his arms out for a hug as well, and hugged him too. "Goodnight, Daniel."

"Night-night, Colonel Jack, I love you," Daniel yawned, eyes already closing.

Shaking his head ruefully, Jack tried to decide if it was more or less weird to hear that from Daniel than from Sam. Two minutes later he decided he'd better not think about any of that or his head might explode. He quickly and quietly got himself ready for bed in the dim light provided by the tiny night light between the beds, popping his pain and anti-inflammatory medicine for his knee with a groan before he climbed onto his own narrow bed. These kids were a lot harder on his recovering knee than Fraiser's PT, that was for sure! He probably needed to ice it, but didn't want to leave the kids alone or bother an Airman to come sit with them for ten minutes while he ran for some ice.

Besides, even though it was early, he was just as exhausted as they were. _He hadn't had a nap, after all! _

_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thank you all for the kind thoughts about my grandfather. I ended up staying there longer than originally planned and it took a while to get back into things once I was back home. I am going to try hard not to leave this story un-updated for so long again. Thank you all for your patience and for reading!

Ch 10

The next morning when Jack woke up, he was surprised to see that the kids were still asleep. A glance at his watch and a sharp pain in his knee told him why - it was only six o'clock. The combination of all the times he normally had to be up at this hour, plus the fact that his knee was apparently sending pain signals to his brain even in sleep, meant that Jack still woke up early even when he could have slept in a bit.

Sighing, he got up to go to the bathroom.

Rubbing his eyes blearily, he flipped on the light and did a double take before letting out an automatic string of expletives. Sometime between going to bed and now, the bathroom had been hit by a tornado.

A tornado that had apparently relocated most of the kids' toys into the bathroom before spreading them all over the place.

The tiny room looked like a toy chest had exploded in it. Books, puzzles, games, stuffed animals, and legos were lying everywhere - even in the sink. He peered into the toilet and was only somewhat comforted to find that mercifully empty.

Apparently his little friends had had a little party in the night.

He carefully picked his way over to the toilet to relieve himself, trying to take deep breaths and stay calm. The pain in his knee was now irritating him more than ever, probably just because it was an easy thing to focus on other than the real source of his frustration. That, and he'd probably overdone it with the kids the previous day. And he hadn't been taking the pain meds the doc had prescribed… and may have missed an anti-inflammatory dosage or two… and had quit icing it.

Anyway, his knee was annoying him. So was the mess.

He finished up in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and making a note to bring his razor up from his locker after he used it later, then went back into the room. Two sets of curious eyes were staring at him sleepily from the same bed, blinking at him owlishly as the kids woke.

"We heard yelling," Daniel informed him, sitting up against his pillows but still under his covers.

Sam was next to him on top of the covers, clearly having moved there upon waking. "You owe us seven dollars now," she informed him.

"Seven?"

"You said dammit twice and you said hell and sh…" Daniel started, while Sam held up another finger at each word he got to.

"All right, all right," Jack interrupted. "I believe you. My wallet's in my locker. I'll pay up when I go get dressed. Although I don't think it's very fair for you to set traps for me to catch me swearing."

"Huh?" Daniel asked, looking at Sam, puzzled.

She looked just as confused, and shrugged in response.

"What else could possibly have happened to the bathroom?" Jack continued innocently, trying to sound oblivious.

"Uhhh… did someone break the potty or something?" Daniel asked.

Jack looked at both of them. Daniel looked confused and a little curious. Sam, on the other hand, was now hugging her knees and staring down at the blanket. He has assumed it was both of them, but apparently he was wrong.

"Sam?" he prompted. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes, sir," she admitted almost inaudibly.

He sat down on her empty bed and waited for her to continue. She didn't. didn't even look at him.

"Sam," he prompted again. "What happened?"

"I guess maybe I left a mess in there," she said after taking a huge breath and finally looking up, although still not at him.

"When and why did you do that?" he prodded gently, surprised by her subdued and sheepish responses.

"I woke up," she said with a shrug.

"You woke up."

"You guys were sleeping so I took the toys in there to be quiet so I wouldn't bother you," she explained. "I played til I got sleepy again then I came back to bed. I was gonna clean it up today."

"Why were you up playing in the middle of the night?" he asked, baffled.

She shrugged. "I woke up."

He could tell she really had no other explanation for him. Trying to remind himself she was only four, he took a deep breath. "Okay. Well, then why don't you go clean up. Then we'll all get dressed and go have breakfast."

"Am I in trouble?" she asked, biting her lip and looking at him nervously.

"Nope. Just clean up your mess." He really didn't think there was anything to be 'in trouble' about, after all. It wasn't as if she had broken anything or hurt anybody or anything. If she'd been that wide awake for that long, he really couldn't blame her for entertaining herself… and was actually surprised she hadn't woken him up in the process. Actually, that was weird…

He followed her into the bathroom and started taking legos out of the sink absently. "Hey, Sam?"

"Uh-huh?"

He smiled, finding it truly amusing how she switched randomly from 'yes sir's to 'yeah's and 'uh-huh's.

"Did you have a bad dream last night?"

"Nope," she replied.

"You sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. So nothing's bothering you? You just woke up."

"I just woke up," she confirmed.

Daniel pushed past her, heading straight for the toilet, clearly a man on a mission.

"O…kay, let's just get out of Danny's way for a second," Jack said quickly, amused. He grabbed Sam and left to give him some privacy - not that Daniel cared one way or another, which was clearly evident by the fact that he had been climbing onto the toilet before they were even out of the room.

Once the bathroom had been used by all and cleaned up, Jack told the kids to get dressed. He watched as they held a whispered conversation with each other amongst much giggling, then ran over to their new clothes and started rummaging through them, tossing stuff out of the way as they looked for whatever it was they wanted.

He checked in with Teal'c and Fraiser while he waited for the kids to get dressed, and had just hung up the phone when he felt a tug on the leg of his sweatpants. Looking down, he smiled broadly at both kids. They were wearing their little black tee-shirts, green cargo pants, and boots. Daniel's laces were still untied, and Sam was holding a hair brush and a ponytail holder out to him expectantly.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Jack asked, taking the ponytail holder curiously.

"Ponytail," she said, turning her back to him and standing still.

"All right, I'll give it a try," he said, taking the brush.

"NO bumps!" she added firmly.

"No what?"

"Bumps. No bumps." She patted the top of her head. "Make it all smooth."

"You are very lucky you're so cute," he stated matter-of-factly, gathering all of her hair up experimentally in one hand, trying to run the brush through with the other.

Ten minutes later, he was about ready to cry. Daniel was whining that he was starving to death and couldn't they please go on to breakfast, and Sam had marched into the bathroom to check her ponytail in the mirror three times already and declared it "too bumpy" each time.

Jack spotted the blanket in the corner and decided to change tactics as he tried once again to do the ponytail. "Sam, this is the last time I'm doing this this morning. If you don't like it, you can have Janet fix it for you after breakfast. If we don't get on with our day, you'll never get to see your surprise over there in the corner, remember?"

"Oh yeah!" she remembered excitedly.

Daniel even stopped whining too.

Smiling to himself at his brilliant negotiating techniques, he tightened the little wavy ponytail one last time and patted her on the bed. "Okay, you two. Let's go get breakfast so we can come back here for your surprise."

"Aww, can't we see it now?" Sam pleaded.

"Nope. Because I know I will never be able to tear you away from it once you see it," he said, only succeeding in building up their excitement level even more.

Daniel started inching towards the blanket, looking curiously and trying to blend in with his surroundings while Jack was apparently focused on Sam. Needless to say, it didn't work. He hadn't gone two feet before he found himself scooped up and dumped over Jack's shoulder.

"Ahhhh!" he squealed, as Sam laughed at him and tried to dodge out of the way as well, making a break towards the blankety lump. She was promptly scooped up as well, and joined Daniel hanging upside down over Jack's opposite shoulder.

Each kid doing an impression of a sack of potatoes, Jack carried the giggling kids out of the room, pretending they each weighed a ton to elicit further laughs from both of them.

"Why do we have to go in here?" Sam asked curiously five minutes later once they were in SG-1's private locker room.

"Because this is where my clothes and shaving stuff all is. Why don't you guys play while I get dressed."

"Play what?"

He shrugged. "Tag. Hide and seek. The quiet game…"

Sam smacked Daniel on the shoulder and took off around the bench in the middle of the room with a giggle, calling, "You're it!"

Jack busied himself shaving, humming to himself absently as the occasional giggle wafted his way.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tag had turned into hide and seek fairly quickly. Sam ducked into one of the cubby-like locker areas in the room and tried to hide behind the uniform hanging there. An ID badge caught her attention because it was right at eye level, sticking out of a pocket. She pulled it out and examined it curiously, surprised to see her own name on it. The picture was a grown-up who looked kind of like her mom.

"Got you!" Daniel exclaimed, jumping into the small space with her.

"Shh!" she scolded, pulling him further in. "Daniel, look at this! It says Samantha Carter on it, that's me!" she showed him eagerly.

"It's just like Colonel Jack's thing that opens the doors and elevator," Daniel whispered excitedly.

"Yeah I know!"

"That's not you though," he pointed out.

She shrugged and slipped it into her pocket. "I guess it's like when you buy a picture frame and there's a picture of someone else in it. I haven't had my picture taken yet is all."

"Where's mine?" Daniel pouted, looking around.

"Come on, let's go check another uniform." She grabbed his hand and peeked out to make sure Jack was still busy, and they slunk into the next little open closet-like area, where someone else's stuff was.

They quickly found Daniel's corresponding badge. "Wow," he whispered. "Should we ask Colonel Jack when we're getting our pictures on them?"

Sam bit her lip and shook her head firmly after thinking for a minute. "He might take em away. Let's keep em secret at least until we get to use them a couple times."

"Okay," Daniel agreed, pocketing his badge and zipping his lips with his fingers.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Hey, what are you guys doing?" Jack called.

Two little heads peeped out of Daniel's cubby with sheepish grins. "Playing hide and seek," Daniel reported innocently.

"doesn't that work better when one of you is looking for the other?" he asked.

"We were waiting for you to find us," Sam answered. "Can we have breakfast now, please? We're starving, Colonel!"

"Starving, huh? Well, come on, you two. Let's go see if Teal'c has left any breakfast for anyone else."

Laughing at the thought of Teal'c eating all the food on the whole base, the kids led the way to the elevator.

Jack didn't even try to keep the kids from having a bit of sugar at breakfast. He let them get pancakes - no doubt to be drowned in syrup - and grabbed bananas and toast for each of them, figuring that as long as he kept them away from the coffee and donuts they'd be doing better today than yesterday.

He steered them them to SG-1's usual table, where Teal'c was already halfway through his usual massive breakfast. "Morning, Uncle Teal'c!" Daniel greeted with a huge grin. "Good morning, Uncle Teal'c!" Sam threw her arms around him in a happy greeting before climbing into her chair.

"Good morning, Daniel. Good morning, Samantha. Did you sleep well?"

"Yup!" Daniel reported, digging into his pancakes enthusiastically. "Where's Doctor Janet?" he asked with his mouth full.

"Probably in the infirmary already," Jack answered. "That's our next stop."

Both kids looked at him in alarm at that news. "Why do we have to go back there?" Sam demanded.

"Yeah, we're not sick! We don't have to get more shots, do we?" Daniel asked nervously.

"No. I want her to look at your eyes, Daniel."

"Oh yeah," they remembered.

Jack could tell Daniel was getting nervous through the rest of breakfast.

"What's wrong?" he prompted quietly as Sam started talking to Teal'c about something she'd drawn in the middle of the night, apparently.

"Is it gonna hurt?" Daniel asked.

"Nope, not at all," he promised. "She may have to put some drops in that might make your eyes a little sensitive for a little while, but that's all."

"Oh. Okay." He nodded and tried to look unconcerned for the rest of the meal.

Once they were finished eating, after a stop to get them cleaned up, Jack took them to the infirmary, where they ran to Janet to greet her as enthusiastically as they'd greeted Teal'c.

Surprised, she hugged them back and quickly turned her attention to Jack. "Colonel, you missed your post-op on that knee yesterday."

"Uh… I was hoping you forgot about that," he hedged.

Janet gave him a look that plainly said 'fat chance' and gestured to the nearest gurney. Grumbling to himself, Jack sat down on the edge of it, watching in amusement as the kids surrounded him.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked.

Daniel just looked relieved that nobody was examining his eyes yet, and determined to remain silent and hopefully inconspicuous.

"Nothing," Jack said quickly, not wanting them to worry. "She just wants to look at my knee."

"Why?" Daniel asked, despite himself.

"Because I had an operation on it a while ago and she needs to make sure it's healing. Which it obviously is or I wouldn't have been able to keep up with you two yesterday, right? Tell her I don't need to be checked out so she'll let us go play."

As Janet came over with his chart and a couple of instruments, both Sam and Daniel piped up immediately.

"Colonel Jack isn't sick!"

"The Colonel's knees are all better! He was running around all the time with us yesterday even though he doesn't do very good ponytails. Can you fix my hair please Doctor Janet?"

Amused, Janet said, "Sure, sweetie, after I look at the Colonel's knee." she turned her attention to Jack and added, " And you are not getting out of this no matter how many adorable children you sic on me."

He shrugged and tried to bunch his pants up to his knee. They didn't quite go up high enough. "No way, Colonel. Drop 'em," she ordered, eliciting twin giggles from the children.

Jack rolled his eyes and started loosening his belt as Sam and Daniel scrambled up onto the opposite gurney to watch the knee exam, both clearly curious about what could possibly be wrong with someone's knee.

By the time Janet was done poking, prodding, and flexing the joint, it was twice as sore as it had been and Jack felt like a goldfish because the kids had been watching intently the whole time and asking a million questions, all of which Janet had done her best to answer.

She gave him an ice pack for the swelling exacerbated by the exam and made him swallow the pills he kept forgetting to take right in front of her, then turned her attention to Sam's hair.

In five minute she had the ponytail adequately smooth to Sam's standards. Jack watched the process carefully, mentally taking notes, then said quietly, "Hey, doc?"

"What is it, Colonel?" she asked, confused by the tone. She came back over to check the ice on his knee.

"Did you check out Daniel's eyes when they… woke up? He couldn't see the pictures in the book I was reading them last night, and Sam could."

Janet's eyes widened and she said quietly, "I didn't really check… Daniel's medical file states he didn't get glasses until he was ten, so I just assumed…"

"Well, maybe he needed them earlier and no one noticed," Jack answered.

"Good point." She turned to Daniel with a smile. "Come on, sweetie, let's go check out your eyes."

Daniel's eyes widened in fear. "They're good!" he insisted.

"Daniel," Jack said. "It will help you feel better, I promise."

Sam, who was next to him, grabbed hold of his hand and squeezed, smiling encouragingly. "It'll be okay, Daniel. I'll go first if you want."

He gave her a small smile but nodded eagerly. Sam turned to Janet. "You can check mine first, Doctor Janet."

Janet looked at Jack, who shrugged. It might take longer, but if it kept them both happy, he was all for it. Janet got out her penlight with a slight sigh. "Okay, Sam, look straight ahead…"

An hour later, both kids' eyes had been examined, and Janet had determined that Daniel needed glasses. "He's about 20/60 already," she informed Jack. "Do you want to take them both to pick up some frames? I could send a nurse out to get some if you'd prefer."

Jack thought about both kids in an eyewear store… yeah, it just wasn't how he preferred to spend the rest of the morning. "Just send someone if you don't mind. I doubt they'd have much fun there."

"Where?" Sam asked, perking up at the word "fun" from where she and Daniel were busy building something out of tongue depressors on one of the beds.

"Picking out Daniel's glasses. We're just going to go play while someone else goes to get them."

"Okay," Daniel agreed quickly.

"Who's going to pick mine out?" Sam asked.

"You don't need them, sweetie," Janet explained.

"But I want them! You looked at my eyes too, how come I don't get them?"

"She can have mine," Daniel offered immediately.

Jack groaned. One kid didn't want glasses, the other one did. Of course. "Sam, Daniel's glasses will only help Daniel see better. They will make your eyes and head hurt."

"But if he's getting some I want some too," Sam insisted.

"Daniel's eyes need help. Yours don't," Janet tried to explain.

"But…"

"Okay," Jack interrupted. "Sam, you're not getting glasses because you don't need them. Daniel does. That's all there is to it. Now, do you guys want to go see your surprise, or not?" he asked.

Remembering the mysterious lumpy blanket quickly distracted both children, who immediately started trying to drag him out of the infirmary.

Chuckling, Janet watched them go, calling, "Good luck!"

Glasses arguments hopefully pushed aside for the moment, Jack fielded questions about the surprise until they were back in their room, at which point the kids immediately bolted for the blanket lump in the corner.

Dragging the potted plant out of their way with all their might, they pulled the blanket off, squealing with delight when they saw the Jeep underneath. Sam was bouncing in place with her arms around Daniel's shoulders, shrieking happily. Daniel was excited too, although Jack could tell he didn't really know what the toy could do yet.

Smiling at them, Jack let them carry on for a few minutes before saying, "Okay, okay, we don't want people thinking there's an emergency in here. Calm down."

"Can we drive it? Can we drive it, please please please, Colonel?" Sam asked eagerly, climbing into it as she spoke.

"Sure," he said, reaching around her to turn it on. He showed her how to put it in reverse and carefully backed it out of the corner, then put Daniel in the passenger seat.

"Wow, it really drives?" Daniel asked excitedly.

"Yeah isn't it the awesomest? I saw them at the store when you were lookin at the bikes," Sam explained as Jack switched it to forward.

"Now, you want to push…" he started, stopping when she floored it and the Jeep lurched forward into the couch.

"Whoa!" Daniel exclaimed as Sam laughed.

"Slowly," Jack finished, shaking his head. "Okay, do a couple laps around the room, Speed Demon."

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" she screamed happily. Daniel was just screaming - sounding half happy, half afraid for his life.

"Figures," Jack said, making a show of leaping up onto the couch to avoid being run over.

It didn't take the kids long to get the hang of it. Sam drove it around, weaving around the furniture in the room, for a few minutes, then Daniel had a turn, calming down a bit once he realized Sam wasn't going to kill them both.

When it was Sam's turn to drive again and they got out to switch seats, they were both grinning.

"Thank you so much for the awesome Jeep, Colonel Jack!" Daniel said.

"Yeah, it's the most awesome present ever in the whole world!" Sam agreed enthusiastically, running over to him and throwing her arms around his waist in an enthusiastic hug.

Daniel copied her.

"No problem," he said, ruffling Daniel's hair and patting Sam on the back (he wasn't about to ruffle hair he'd spent all morning fixing!)

"Can we drive it in the hallway, please?" Sam pleaded, looking up at him hopefully.

Jack hesitated. He was all for it, personally, but doubted the rest of the base - Hammond especially - would share his feelings.

"Please?" she asked again when she saw he was on the fence and he didn't respond right away. "It'll be so much more fun with more space, and we won't be afraid of breaking all the stuff in here… please, Colonel?"

"All right," he relented, feeling like the world's biggest pushover. "Just up and down the hallway though, okay?" Nobody would have a reason to be near the VIP corridor anyway, unless they were looking for them…

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" they exclaimed happily, jumping up and down in place before bounding back over to the Jeep. Jack held the door open for them and watched from the doorway as they zoomed up and down the corridor for several minutes. The phone ringing in the VIP room interrupted and he went back in to answer it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Hey, where'd Colonel Jack go?" Daniel asked, spotting the empty doorway.

Sam shrugged and stopped the Jeep by the elevator. "Let's see if this works like his," she suggested, standing up in the seat and pulling out the ID card she'd swiped from the locker room earlier. She swiped it through the reader and sure enough, the elevator opened a few seconds later.

"Saaaaaaaaaaaam," Daniel warned as she quickly drove the toy car into the elevator. "We are gonna get in soooooooo much trouble!"

She shrugged and said, "He never said we couldn't go on the elevator. Besides, I wanna show our Jeep to Uncle George and Uncle Teal'c!"

Daniel bit his lip, but pushed the button that would take them to the commissary - that was where Teal'c seemed to be most of the time.

xxxxxxxxx

Jack hung up the phone, grumbling to himself. Hammond was asking for reports he hadn't written yet, and didn't seem to think that an injured knee and double babysitting duty was adequate excuse for their lateness.

As Hammond had pointed out, those two things were fairly recent, but the paperwork had been due months ago.

Jack was just going to have to suck it up and go get his laptop, that was all there was to it. He headed out of the room to tell the kids and stopped in confusion when he didn't see them. "SAM? DANIEL?" he called, hurrying to the end of the corridor and looking down the next one, which was empty.

"Oh crap," he muttered.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Apologies. First, this is taking me much longer to finish now that I am back in school. Secondly, this chapter is shorter than the others. I will do the best I can to finish the story as quickly as possible while still telling the story I set out to tell. Thank you for reading and thank you for your patience.

Ch 11

Jack hurried through the obviously deserted halls of the SGC, calling for Sam and Daniel. They had to be on this level, right? There was no way they could've gotten on the elevator… but after scouring the level he was on and speaking to the few personnel on the level who definitely hadn't seen two four year olds cruising around in a battery-powered Jeep, Jack had to conclude that somehow they must have left the level.

Great.

A whole military base to search. How had nobody called him yet to tell him where they were? It shouldn't be too hard to spot them in that thing and assume they shouldn't be wherever they were, for crying out loud!

Xxxxxxx

Waving and smiling at everyone as they passed, calling cheerful greetings to several friendly faces, Sam and Daniel were having no luck finding either of the "uncles" they were looking for… but they sure were having fun trying!

Sam pulled to a stop next to a friendly looking man who was waiting for the elevator, grinning at him from behind the wheel. She looked at the insignia and thought hard. "Excuse me, Lieutenant, can you please tell me where my Uncle George is?" she asked sweetly.

Laughing, Lieutenant Simmons asked, "General Hammond?"

"Yes, sir."

"He's probably in his office. Or the control room, or the briefing room."

The kids exchanged looks.

"What number?" Daniel asked as Sam drove them into the elevator with him.

The friendly man shook his head, laughing, and pushed the button for them, evidently figuring the kids probably needed to be found as soon as possible. Surely if Hammond wasn't already looking for them, he would be soon.

"Thanks!" they called as they zipped away once the elevator had landed.

They were now in a very busy part of the base. Sam weaved around many pairs of legs while Daniel called, "Watch out! Look out! Sorry! Sorry!" to people as they blew past them.

She caught a familiar Texas accent wafting down the corridor and headed that way determinedly, steering into a big room with a big window and a bunch of computers and a lot of people. "Hey, Uncle George!" she called, steering right up to him and coming to a stop about half an inch from his kneecaps. "Look what Colonel O'Neill gave us!"

Mouth gaping wide open, General George Hammond looked down at the two children in utter disbelief. Not only were they gallivanting around his base in a miniature vehicle, but they had somehow gained access to the most secure level! "Sam! What in Sam-hill are you doing down here, alone?" he demanded.

The little girl's smile faltered, confused, and Daniel offered, "She's not alone, I'm here too!"

"Oh believe me, I see that, Dr…. Mr. Jackson."

"Uncle George, we wanted to show you our new toy. Are you mad at me?" Sam asked, eyes filling with confused tears as she looked around the room.

There were lots of adults there, all staring at her. Seeing all their eyes on her only compounded the problem and she suddenly started crying, hating the feeling of scrutiny when she might have done something wrong.

Hammond felt instantly guilty at the sight of her tears. "No, sweetheart. I'm not mad at _you. _but I will be having a few words with some other people as soon as possible. Walter, page O'Neill. NOW."

"Yes, sir," Walter squeaked, scurrying to comply, as Sam sniffled and wiped her eyes.

"Wow, what's that?" Daniel asked, standing up in his seat in the Jeep and pointing straight through the large plexiglass window, right at the Stargate.

Sam scrambled to her feet as well to see what he was pointing at, tears and embarrassment forgotten instantly. "Whoa! That's neat! What is it?"

Hammond groaned. Just what he needed. The kids had now seen the Stargate.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack ran into Hammond's office, hiding a wince as he stopped. Damn knee. Sam and Daniel were both on Hammond's lap, the Jeep parked beside them. Crap.

"So, you see, it's very important that you never talk about that big old ring down there…" Hammond was saying to them.

"Big old ring?" Jack interrupted, despite himself.

"Yes, Colonel. When these two crashed into the control room in that contraption you put them in, they got quite an eyeful," Hammond said pointedly.

"Sh… crap," Jack said quickly.

"Two dollars," Hammond snapped.

"But I didn't…" Jack started, then stopped at the stern look on the man's face. "Yes, sir."

He knew he was in for a reaming out about the Jeep, but he didn't want the kids to hear it.

"Uh, sir, maybe Teal'c could take the kids to Fraiser? She should have Daniel's glasses soon if she doesn't already," Jack suggested.

"Good idea."

"Goodie, we can show him the Jeep," Sam said excitedly to Daniel.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to impound that vehicle for the time being," Hammond told her.

"Huh?" Sam asked.

"Colonel O'Neill will explain it to you when I'm finished explaining it to him," Hammond said, shooting another look at Jack, as if he couldn't already tell he was in for it. He set the kids on their feet carefully and tried to smile at them. "Go wait with Walter. Tell him to call Teal'c."

"Okay," Daniel agreed.

"Yes, sir." Sam looked back and forth between the two men, sure she was missing something. She just had no idea what. Deciding that hugs always made things better, she threw her arms around Hammond where he sat in his chair and hugged him tightly. "I'm so glad we finded you, Uncle George. We were looking all over for you forever. I love you!" She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek with a big smile.

He sighed and hugged her, sounding like his normal, gentle self this time. "Go wait with Walter, honey."

She started to follow Daniel out the door.

"Oh, and Sammy?" Hammond called.

She stopped and turned back to him.

"Try to behave. Please."

She giggled. "Uncle George, I always behave!" she insisted, grabbing Daniel's hand as they left the room happily.

The two men watched through the plexiglass star chart to make sure they went to Walter, which they did, of course.

Then Jack sighed and lowered himself into the seat across from Hammond's desk, feeling like he might as well be facing a firing squad. If only he had a cute little ponytail and dimples to help _him _get out of trouble…

xxxxxxxxxxx

After stopping to change back into his civvies, Jack finally entered the infirmary after a _loooong _conversation with Hammond…. One of those conversations where Hammond did most of the talking - the LOUD talking - and Jack mainly just nodded and tried to look humble and contrite.

He was surprised to hear the tone of Teal'c's normally calm, even voice. "Would you perhaps like some ice cream?" he asked, hopefully, more than a hint of desperation in his voice.

"No," a little voice replied instantly. "I want glasses."

Jack groaned. He had hoped they were past that…

He entered the room feeling sort of like he was entering a boxing ring about to face off against an extremely formidable opponent, and took in the sight in front of him.

Teal'c was standing next to one of the beds, a handful of cookies in one hand and Sam's stuffed unicorn in the other, obviously rejected bribe offers. Daniel sat on a nearby bed, happily building something on a meal tray out of plastic silverware, tongue depressors, and the long q-tips that seemed to live in the infirmary. He was wearing his new glasses - whomever had picked them out had obviously just tried to get a miniature version of the ones Daniel normally wore as an adult. He looked more like his older self now, and, Jack had to admit, seeing a four year old in glasses was absolutely adorable.

Sam, on the other hand, wasn't looking as adorable as usual to him at the moment. Possibly because she had just earned him the ass-chewing of his career, or possibly because he was now facing another argument with her he wasn't entirely sure he could win, but seeing the four year old girl standing in the middle of an infirmary bed with her hands in fists on her hips and a firm scowl directed at Teal'c did not exactly warm his heart at the moment.

"Samantha Carter, are you trying to kill me?" he asked, announcing his presence.

Daniel looked up at him and grinned, waving. "Hi Colonel Jack! Look, I can see you from all the way over here!" he called happily.

"Great, buddy!" Jack said enthusiastically. Apparently seeing how much Sam was coveting his glasses had made Daniel decide they were all right after all.

Daniel went back to playing immediately, so Jack turned his attention back to Sam.

"It's not fair," she said stubbornly, sulking, as Jack picked her up by the arms and set her on the floor, safely off the bed.

"She has been most inconsolable since the arrival of Daniel Jackson's glasses, and has thwarted my attempts to distract her," Teal'c reported.

"Tattle-tale," Sam muttered.

"Samantha Carter," Jack warned again.

She crossed her arms and glared at the floor.

"I let her have a turn with them," Daniel called.

Well, there went Jack's plan to show her how much she would hate wearing them, since they'd make everything blurry for her.

"Don't you want to hear what happened with Hammond? You guys got me in so much trouble we're being thrown off the base."

"You are?" Fraiser asked as she entered the room.

"Well, not really," Jack conceded. "But Hammond did finally agree with me that the base isn't the best place for them. He said if you cleared them I could take them home."

"Wow, hear that, Sam? You get to leave!" Janet tried, latching onto the Colonel's clear attempt to distract her.

Daniel's attention had been sparked again and he was watching hopefully, looking perky.

"Where are we going?" Sam finally asked after thinking hard for several moments.

"To my house," Jack said. "Then to a grocery store pretty quick, I imagine. We'll still have to come up here for about half the day most afternoons, though. Come on, at my house you can ride your bikes and drive the car all you want."

Daniel destroyed whatever he was building in his effort to scramble off the bed and over to Jack. "Yaaaaaaaaaaay! Come on, Sam, it'll be so fun."

"Okay," Sam finally agreed. "But I still want my own glasses," she grumbled.

Jack sighed. He was really getting tired of hearing the word 'glasses.' then a thought occurred to him: She wasn't _his _kid.

He knew he shouldn't just give in under _normal _circumstances… but the circumstances were far from normal here. She wasn't going to be four forever and he didn't have the responsibility of really raising her. He could opt for the easy way out with no long-term damage.

"All right, you can have mine," he said, pulling his sunglasses out of his pocket and handing them to her.

She took them suspiciously, clearly surprised, and examined them for a while before putting them on. She looked so silly with the oversize frames on her little face that Jack chuckled. She wrinkled her nose at him, then smiled. "Thanks, Colonel!" she hugged him, all traces of previous stubborness and irritability gone.

"Uh, sir, maybe that's not the best way to handle…" Fraiser started, but Teal'c interrupted with "Many thanks, O'Neill. If you require no further assistance I will leave you all for the day."

Apparently Teal'c was tired of babysitting for the day.

Jack nodded. "No problem. I'll call you later after we're settled in at home."

"Very well." Teal'c said goodbye to the children and Fraiser and left quickly.

Jack had to smile to himself at the thought that the large Jaffa had beat a hastier retreat from a cranky four year old than Jack had seen him do from enemy fire.

He turned his attention to the children, who were now standing side by side and grinning ear to ear, nearly vibrating with excitement at getting to leave the base. Sam was still wearing his sunglasses, but he was confident the novelty would wear off sometime soon and she'd give them up on her own.

"Okay, you two. Let's go home."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N: Now that they are leaving the base the pace of the story is going to pick up a lot. Thanks again for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

Ch 12

It took a long time to get most of the kids' stuff loaded back into the truck and get to Jack's house. Once inside, Sam and Daniel ran around excitedly, checking out their temporary home with the typical eagerness of any little kid exploring a new environment. Jack left them to it, checking on them frequently as he made trip after trip to bring their stuff inside.

As he brought in the last of it - their clothes, which he dumped on the chair in his guest room for the time being - he went out to check on them again. They were both in the living room. Sam already had the television on but wasn't watching it - she was wedged halfway behind it, marveling at its thin dimensions and clearly more interested in the technology than what was on the screen. Jack had to remind himself that it was all very different from the stuff she was used to. He had deflected questions about it fairly well in the toy store, he thought, but reminded himself to be diligent.

He had to echo that sentiment as he spotted Daniel. The little boy was scrutinizing the collection of photos Jack had on one wall. There was one of Charlie and one of himself with Charlie, but there were three pictures there of SG-1 as well, and while Jack was PRETTY sure Daniel wouldn't recognize the similarities between himself and Sam and their older selves, he didn't want to take any chances. He snatched the similar picture off the refrigerator quickly and made a mental note to grab the framed ones and put them out of sight as soon as he got the chance.

"So," he clapped his hands together loudly to get both their attention. "What do you want to do first? I'm thinking we should order some pizza."

As if four year olds would ever decline pizza!

Jack quickly ordered the pizza and took the kids outside to supervise while they played and waited for it to arrive.

They drove the Jeep around for a while before Daniel vacated it in favor of his bike. Sam alternated between her bike and the Jeep, hopping in and out and on and off of both so often Jack finally demanded she stop taking off the helmet and pads when she got in the vehicle, just to save time and effort.

He had a relatively flat driveway so they had enough room to ride around, and were happy to stay in one place when he promised them that on other times they could take walks and such, they just needed to stay at the house until the pizza arrived.

Once it did they all went inside to eat. Jack paused after inhaling his own first slice, watching thoughtfully as the kids ate - Daniel's head tilted completely sideways as he tried to catch drizzling cheese off the slice he was holding mid-air. Passing Daniel a napkin, Jack asked, "Exactly how did you guys get to Hammond anyway?"

"We drove," Sam shrugged.

"No, I mean, how did you know where to go with the elevators?" he asked.

They exchanged worried looks.

"You're not going to get into any more trouble," he promised.

"A guy helped us," Sam said.

"He pushed the button 28 when we said where we wanted to go," Daniel added.

"What guy?" Jack asked.

"Lieutenant something," Sam said.

"Simmons," Daniel said. "I readed his label," he said proudly, touching his chest where the name was displayed on BDUs."

"Read," Jack corrected automatically.

"Well I read his rank!" Sam pointed out. "That's harder."

"Hey, it's not a contest," Jack said mildly, grabbing another slice for himself. "Okay, so that explains how you got on that elevator. How did you get on the one on our floor?"

They looked even guiltier when they exchanged looks this time.

Daniel started to answer but Sam kicked him under the table.

"I wasn't…" he started.

"Daniel? Sam?"

"We, um, got… help," Sam answered finally.

"From whom?" Jack asked slowly.

"Uh, a man and a woman," Sam said.

"We don't know their names," Daniel added.

Jack looked at them, sure they were leaving something out. He didn't think they would flat out lie to him, but he knew he wasn't getting the whole story here.

They now had their heads down and were eating quickly, obviously hoping not to be asked any more questions.

Jack decided maybe he'd be happier not knowing at this point. The incident was over and they weren't on the base anymore… it probably wouldn't come up again or end up mattering in the long run. He decided to drop it and said, "Well, all right then, what do we want to do after we finish eating?"

Daniel immediately launched into an explanation of how he wanted to rebuild the Lego city he'd had to disassemble from the VIP room, going into lengthy detail on improvements and changes he intended to make now that he had more room.

"What about your naps?" Jack asked.

"We're way too excited to take a nap," Sam insisted.

Daniel nodded.

Jack supposed the novelty of being off the base had them a little wired. He shrugged. They could always go to bed early - it didn't matter to him too much if they skipped a nap here and there. "All right, no nap today."

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" they chorused.

"Can we ride our bikes some more?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah, can we go to the playground like you said?"

"Sure," Jack said. "After we finish eating."

That effectively ended the rest of the conversation, as both kids finished eating as quickly as possible, eager to get to the playground. The only thing either of them said in ten minutes was Daniel popping up from his slice of pizza long enough to ask if there was a sandbox there.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The playground on a sunny, beautiful afternoon was a dangerous place, Jack decided after an hour there.

While it was definitely easier - especially on his aching knee - to sit on a bench and watch the kids play, it definitely wasn't easier on his heart. He was certain he was going to have to call Fraiser to tell her he was finally having that heart attack she was always threatening him with when she spotted him eating in the commissary… and that this time it would be entirely Sam Carter's fault. Well, maybe a little bit Daniel's fault, but mostly Sam's. because at four, she was fearless. Not that she wasn't fearless as an adult, but she also used her brain most of the time as an adult too.

As adults, Daniel was far more likely to get hurt. As children, Sam was the one scaring him to death climbing on playground equipment meant for much older children, leaping off swings, and darting in and out of other playing children without watching out for things like flying baseballs or waving plastic swords.

Daniel was on her heels most of the time, having fun too, but in a slightly more cautious way, watching what she did first and then copying her in a slightly safer way. He suspected it was a lesson his parents had drilled into him to keep him safe on digs, and wondered when in the boy's development the trait had been lost.

Not to mention all the potential dangers from other kids! The playground was filled with youngsters Jack was just sure were up to no good, and he watched Daniel introduce himself to nearly everyone he met, making fast friends right and left. Sam seemed just as friendly upon introduction but then seemed to quickly grow bored with their new acquaintances in favor of the playground equipment, abandoning Daniel with a new kid to go flying down the slide headfirst or try, once again, to do the monkey bars before getting stuck on the third one and screeching for Jack to come help her down.

When Daniel settled himself in the sandbox with a shovel, six plastic dinosaurs, and a plastic cup and Sam quickly grew bored, Jack quickly intercepted her on her way back to the monkey bars.

"Hey, give it a rest for a minute, will ya?" he objected, plucking her off the ladder.

"But I can do it!" she insisted, squirming.

"Yeah, yeah. You're killing me here, Carter. Don't you want to play in the sandbox with Danny? Maybe be _still _for two seconds so my heart rate can drop below one-eighty?"

She gave him such a perplexed look that he burst out laughing - he had never seen Sam Carter look that confused before.

"You're making me tired," he tried to clarify.

"But you're just sitting on that old bench over there, like all the parents," she grumped.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, yes, sir."

"Hmmph. Well, in that case, young lady, I have a challenge for you."

"What?" she asked suspiciously.

He set her down next to her bike - they'd ridden them to the playground and then abandoned them by the bench Jack had been sitting on. "Let's see if you can do this without the training wheels."

He had noticed her watching the older kids zipping around on their two-wheelers. She'd looked jealous, impressed… and also suspiciously like she was trying to figure out the physics of how they were managing it. He wouldn't have recognized that last expression if he didn't know her so well as an adult.

Using his multi-tool on his keychain, he quickly popped off the training wheels on her bike while she put her pads and helmet back on. He helped her finish up and held the bike steady while she climbed on it.

After checking on Daniel again - he was clearly in the middle of a very complicated plastic-dinosaur excavation and had enlisted four other children to help him - Jack pushed the bike, Sam balanced nervously on it, over to the sidewalk.

"Just pretend the training wheels are still there, and pedal like normal."

Grinning and clearly completely unafraid, she nodded and took off.

Jack had forgotten how awkward and uncomfortable it was to run hunched over beside a tiny bicycle, hanging onto the back of the seat. Or perhaps he'd just had a much younger body last time he'd done it. But, oddly, it did beat sitting on that bench waiting for someone to get hurt. At least this way if she fell down he'd be able to grab her fast enough to avoid any serious injuries.

"Okay, let go!" Sam ordered.

Reluctantly, he let go of the back of her seat. She wobbled a bit but stayed upright and was soon pedaling smoothly all by herself, Jack running next to the bike.

"This is awesome!" she called, passing the sandbox. "Daniel! Look at me!"

Daniel waved, looking impressed, and Jack wasn't surprised when he came over ten minutes later wanting to learn too.

He didn't pick it up as quickly as Sam had. She was zipping around them in circles while Jack tried again and again to help the little boy. Several times the bike crashed to the ground while Jack quickly grabbed Daniel by the armpits to keep him from falling with it. But the kid was as stubborn and determined as a grown-up Daniel Jackson wanting an extra hour with some fascinating ancient ruins. And, eventually, Daniel made a couple of wobbly circuits around the jungle gym all on his own.

Sam clapped loudly for him. Jack joined in, as did several parents who'd been watching the whole episode from their shaded seats while they supervised their own children.

"I did it!"

"You did! Both of you, that was amazing," Jack praised. He looked at his watch. "But we really need to go now. We've got to stop at the grocery store on the way home. The doc will kill me if all I do is stuff you full of pizza."

"The grocery store?" Sam asked skeptically, in a tone that plainly said that it didn't sound like one bit of fun to her.

"But we're _tired, _Colonel Jack," Daniel pleaded, his blue eyes now looking even larger with the addition of the glasses.

Jack sighed. Truth be told, he was beat too.

"All right. We'll stop somewhere for dinner on the way home and go to the store in the morning," he agreed.

He couldn't help but notice that both kids perked up considerably after that, and didn't really seem tired at all anymore as they gathered up their things, still talking excitedly about their milestone accomplishment all the way to the truck. Jack secured the bikes in the bed and got them buckled in their seats in the back, handing them each a fresh bottle of water, and headed for a nearby kid-friendly restaurant, wondering how much ice cream it would take to bribe the kids into forgetting to tell "Dr. Janet" about pizza and fast food on their first day off-base with him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That evening after they got back to his house, Jack was exhausted from all the activity of the day. He couldn't believe Sam and Daniel were still running around, chasing each other around his couch in an impromptu game of tag that had started as soon as they got out of the truck in the driveway.

"Hey, sit down!" Jack finally barked, going over to his entertainment center and grabbing a DVD to put in.

He turned around and laughed out loud - they had plopped down exactly where they'd been when he'd issued the order - Daniel was behind the couch and Sam was next to the end table, knees tucked up to her chin.

"On the couch," he amended.

"Why?" Sam asked as they scrambled to comply.

"What are we doing?" Daniel asked at the same time.

"We're watching a movie. Before bed."

"Okay," Daniel agreed.

"What movie?" Sam asked suspiciously.

"Wizard of Oz. seen it?"

"Yeah! I love that movie!" Sam said eagerly.

"I don't think I saw it before," Daniel said.

"It's really good, it starts off boring but then it goes to color…" Sam started.

"Hey, don't spoil it," Jack said mildly, grabbing the remote and sitting down on the end of the couch.

Both kids immediately scrambled over to him, Sam cuddling into his side, Daniel frowning when he couldn't get closer until Jack hauled him into his lap. Daniel smirked at Sam and Jack quickly switched the movie on before they could start arguing.

Patting himself on the back at the brilliance of his plan, he relaxed into the couch as the kids gave the movie their undivided attention, and were finally still.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

"This is scary," Daniel whispered to Sam.

She nodded, squeezing his hand tightly. "I forgot this part. That lady is so mean!" she agreed.

The two kids looked up at Jack. He had fallen asleep roughly ten minutes into the movie, during the first song. Deciding not to wake him up, they quietly and stealthily eased themselves away from him and headed for the kitchen, where they could talk a little louder.

"What should we do now?" Daniel asked.

"I dunno," Sam shrugged, going over to the refrigerator. "But I'm thirsty."

"Me too," Daniel said, following her as she yanked the heavy door open and surveyed its contents.

She picked up a dark bottle - one of many - and examined it. "Do you think this is Coke?"

"It doesn't say Coke," Daniel pointed.

"I mean some other kind of soda?"

"I dunno. But I can't do bottle caps. Can you?"

"No," Sam shrugged, going to put it back. The cold bottle slipped out of her hands and rolled across the kitchen floor. She scrambled after it and put it away quickly. "I guess he _does _need to the grocery store," she said, clearly unimpressed with the refrigerator's contents.

"Let's have that," Daniel suggested, pointing to a carton of orange juice.

Sam tried to grab it but couldn't reach. Daniel tried, unsuccessfully as well. They pulled a chair over and Sam held it steady while Daniel passed her the orange juice. He used the chair to climb onto the cabinets as well and started opening them, looking for cups.

Ten minutes later, they'd searched everywhere and couldn't find any cups or glasses that weren't breakable. Daniel was all for using a regular glass but Sam was firmly set against it, having been taught at home not to touch glasses without lids without express permission, after breaking a few too many in her short life.

"Let's just drink it from the container," she decided, opening the carton carefully and taking a gulp. She passed it to Daniel, who took a cautious sip before grinning like he was getting away with something fun.

"Why do you think Colonel Jack's so tired?" Daniel asked.

"I think his knee hurts," Sam decided firmly. "Doctor Janet said so and he was playing with us all day. He didn't even put the rice on it like she told him to."

"The what?" Daniel asked, confused.

"The rice," Sam repeated. "Didn't you hear her in the infirmary?"

"I was building," Daniel shrugged. "I wasn't listening."

"Oh. Well he's got some pills to take I think. And she said he had to put rice on it at least once a day."

"Rice? Why?"

Sam shrugged. "I dunno but that's what she said."

"Not ice?" Daniel guessed.

Sam shook her head firmly. "She said, 'be sure you rice that at least once this evening, Colonel.'"

Daniel's eyes widened. "But he didn't do it! What happens to him if he doesn't get the rice?"

"I dunno. Maybe his knee will get sicker," Sam worried. "Then he won't be able to play with us."

"And we'll have to stay with Doctor Janet all the time in the infirmary where all the needles are," Daniel added, growing increasingly concerned.

Sam looked around. "We better find the rice," she decided firmly.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack woke up with a wince of pain. The movie was still going, so he wasn't sure what had woken him… then he realized the two warm little bodies that had been snuggling him were gone. He was a second from opening his eyes when he heard them approach, whispering.

"Shhh, don't wake him up!"

"Be careful!"

Amused, he cracked an eye open barely to see what they were up to. They were making their way over to him slowly, holding the hems of their shirts out and up in front of them like they were carrying something in their shirts, making little makeshift pouches. When they reached the coffee table, they dumped the contents there, standing between him and the table so he couldn't see what they had. Then they turned to him and started dumping tiny handfuls of something on his knee. He couldn't see what it was without opening his eyes fully, and when he did he groaned.

This wasn't their first trip, apparently. For some reason he couldn't even begin to fathom, his knee and a good portion of the leg and couch around it, were all buried in a pile of dry white rice.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" he grumbled, shaking the last remnants of sleep away.

"A dollar!" Daniel exclaimed happily.

Jack groaned, surveying the mess that was his leg. And his couch. And the coffee table, what with the pile of rice they'd brought in to transfer to his knee. There was more than a little of it on the floor between the couch and coffee table, too.

"We're helping you so you don't get in trouble," Sam said matter-of-factly, adding another handful of rice to his knee and patting it gently.

"What?" he repeated.

"With Doctor Janet," Daniel elaborated. "We don't want your knee to fall off or something."

"Or get sicker," Sam agreed, nodding earnestly.

"Wha… o…kay… but what's with the rice?" he asked, flabbergasted.

"She said you needed to put rice on it but we were with you all day and we never seed you do that," Sam said.

"Saw. And… what?"

"She told you to put rice…" Sam started again, looking uncertain and a bit worried.

Jack got it suddenly and started laughing. The more he surveyed the mess and the kids, the more he laughed, unable to stop himself.

"I'm sorry, guys. This is just too much," he finally said. "Don't worry. Nobody's going to get in trouble. Except maybe 'doctor janet.'"

"Huh?" Daniel asked.

"She did tell me to RICE it, Sam, you're absolutely right. But that's R-I-C-E, honey, not the kind of rice you eat."

"What's the difference?"

"It's an anagram - the letters stand for words. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. Those are the things I was supposed to do to my knee, guys, not put a bunch of rice on it."

They looked at each other and shrugged. "Oh."

"Oops," Daniel offered.

"It's not your fault," Jack said quickly. "And I appreciate the thought. Don't worry, I'll take care of my knee when you guys go to sleep. Speaking of which, it's getting pretty late. Aren't you guys tired yet?"

They nodded. "Do we have to clean up the kitchen before bed?" Sam asked.

Jack's eyes widened. The mess in the living room would be a pain enough to clean up - what had they done in the kitchen?

He scooped as much rice as possible back into the pile on the table before getting to his feet and hurrying to the kitchen. He stopped himself from swearing again just in time. All the cabinets and drawers were open. Boxes of cereal and other groceries were out on the floor and cabinets, along with various bowls, spoons, pots, pans, etc. a bag of flour had clearly fallen from the counter and burst open on the floor, its contents sprayed halfway across the kitchen floor. A bag of potato chips had also been spilled and apparently walked through, as crushed chips were also everywhere. Orange juice was sitting opened in the middle of the floor.

"We had some trouble finding the rice," Daniel explained.

"Ya think?" Jack asked quietly, going over to the fridge for a beer. This situation needed beer. He pulled out the first one (the one Sam had accidentally dropped before) and twisted the cap off. It foamed up instantly, getting him, the inside of his fridge, and his floor wet instantly. He sighed. "Icing on the cake."

The kids looked at each other quickly. "There's cake?" Daniel asked hopefully. "We didn't see any cake!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N: The RICE incident happened here a while ago when my ankle was sprained... I woke up on the couch to find my twin brothers burying my foot in rice. I'll update again as quickly as I can but this is a very busy time of year for me. Thanks for sticking with this story!


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: I'm really sorry it took so long to update. Long story short, my family and I moved like halfway across the country. So I've been really busy lately. New school, watching my little brothers so my parents can get stuff done, etc. Anyway, it's just taking longer than I thought it would to finish. I'm going to put up two chapters today though. Also, only one reviewer caught something I did on purpose in the last chapter, so good job to you! It will be explained in the next chapter.

Ch 13

Kids dressed in fresh pajamas, faces, hands, and teeth all cleaned, Jack tucked them into the bed in the guest room, flipping on the lamp on the nightstand and turning off the overhead light. "Now I'm just down the hall if you need anything in the night," he reminded them. "Sam, if you wake up, please don't have a party in my bathroom." He ruffled her hair to show he was just teasing.

"Can you read to us?" Daniel asked hopefully, glancing around the new room somewhat nervously.

Jack nodded and chuckled when Daniel instantly reached under his pillow and pulled out one of their new books.

The kids fell asleep after ten minutes of reading, obviously tired from their long day of playing. Jack put the book away carefully and looked at the sweet little sleeping faces of his friends. He carefully tugged the glasses off of Daniel's face, used to doing it over the years when Daniel fell asleep in the field or his lab or the infirmary with them on. It was trickier with Sam this time - she had stubbornly refused to take off the sunglasses for most of the day. On the few occasions she'd removed them they'd been hanging from her neck by the straps Jack used to keep them on off-world.

He carefully pulled the large frames off, lifted her head gently to remove the cord from around her neck, and slid a pillow in place under her head. He left both pairs of glasses on the nightstand and left the room quietly, shutting the door carefully. As he went to the kitchen and started the daunting task of cleaning up the mess the well-intentioned kids had made when looking for the rice for his knee, he wondered if he should have picked up a baby monitor at the store earlier. He knew they weren't babies, but still… what if they needed something in the night? Or got up and started doing crazy stuff again? Or…

He shook his head. He was being ridiculous. They were four - if they needed something, they'd come find him, just as he'd instructed.

He stifled a yawn and started cleaning up the kitchen.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Daniel! Daniel, wake up, I'm scared!" Sam whispered loudly, shaking the little boy's shoulder. Daniel groaned and rolled over, but didn't wake.

Sam looked around the new room and bit her lip. It wasn't scary in the day, or at bedtime when everyone else was awake… and she would never admit it if Daniel was awake… but she was kind of scared now. Just a little.

Remembering what the Colonel had told her about finding him if she woke up, she stared at the door as her eyes adjusted to the dark. It looked so far. And the bed was a bed with space under it. She didn't like beds with space under them.

"Daniel?" she asked again hopefully, but Daniel wasn't waking up apparently. She took a deep breath and threw the covers back, took a leap off the bed as far away as she could get from the bed, and ran for the door.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack woke with a start as something hit the foot of his bed with a soft _thwump. _He sat up quickly against his headboard and flipped on the bedside lamp, squinting in the light as Sam scrambled up the middle of the bed and burrowed in between his pillows.

"Uh, hi," he said.

She looked scared and was trying not to breathe hard.

"H-hi," she offered, obviously trying to look casual.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said quickly.

"Daniel sleeping?"

"Yes, sir."

He rolled his eyes. "Forcryinoutloud, Carter," he muttered. "What's wrong, couldn't sleep?"

She shook her head and didn't say anything for a few moments, then offered, "It's very dark in there."

"I'm sorry. We'll get you a night light tomorrow if you want. I thought you weren't scared of the dark?"

"I'm not," she insisted.

"O….kay… so what…" He yawned into the back of his hand and then scrubbed his face, trying to wake up. "Did you have a bad dream?"

She shook her head. Then she took a deep breath and said, "You know my Dad, right?"

"Yeah."

"So you know my big brother, Mark?"

"Uh, I've heard about him a little. I haven't met him though."

She fiddled with his duvet for a few minutes and then said quietly, "He's a meanie stinker poo-head BM."

Jack laughed. He'd definitely have to remember that one and whip it out next time they were all on some planet meeting some creepy new native.

"What did he…. What exactly are you talking about?"

"He hides under my bed and grabs my ankles to scare me."

"Oh," Jack said, realizing she was trying to tell him, without admitting it outright, she was scared there was something under the bed. "Okay. Well, that's really mean. I'll be sure to tell your dad about that next time I see him."

"Then Mark will get in trouble?" she asked hopefully.

"Big time," Jack confirmed, privately thinking that if he ever met Mark, even as an adult, Jack would now have quite a few things to say to the man. Nobody traumatized his 2IC and got away with it - at any age!

"Okay," Sam agreed quietly. She looked around his room curiously for a few minutes.

Finally, Jack ventured, "Sam? You know Mark isn't here. There's nothing under your bed to grab you."

"I know," she insisted.

"You sure? I can get a flashlight and show you."

"Or we could just stay here," she suggested hopefully. "We could watch TV! Or play a game!"

He chuckled and handed her the remote. "All right, just for a little bit."

She settled into the pillows happily and turned on the television (she had quickly made herself an expert at all of his remote controls, which amazed the little girl), while Jack tried to stay awake long enough to make sure she didn't stop on something terrifying or inappropriate.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sam found her mom's favorite show - I Love Lucy - and stopped on it. They were old shows only in reruns but they were still funny. Watching it made her think of her mom and be happy so she set the remote down and watched, comforted by the unexpected spot of familiarity in a world that was very unfamiliar to her in every other way.

After a little while, Daniel came into the room rubbing his eyes sleepily. "What are we doing?" he asked.

"Watching Lucy," Sam said happily, pushing the covers back for him as he climbed into the bed as well.

Jack groaned and roused from his half-asleep state and said, "What's wrong, Daniel, did you have a bad dream?"

"I woke up and Sam was gone. I was scared," he admitted. "And I had to go to the bathroom."

"You went already before you got into my bed, didn't you?" Jack asked. Sam giggled.

"Yes," Daniel assured him.

"All right then," he grumbled goodnaturedly, turning over and closing his eyes. "Have fun, you two."

He dozed off, automatically putting himself in "off-world" mode. He was asleep, but the smallest noises and movements would rouse him, just in case.

Sam and Daniel watched tv quietly, snuggled under the covers. Daniel was hugging the stuffed dinosaur he'd picked out at the store. Sam eyed it enviously - she had left her unicorn in the other bedroom, because it had fallen off the bed and was dangerously close to the scary space underneath. She missed him, but not enough to brave going through the dark house all by herself! Daniel saw her eyeing his dinosaur and graciously settled him in between them, smiling at her. She grinned back and felt much better.

"You would be a way better brother than Mark," she told him. Daniel, an only child, positively beamed at the compliment.

They soon fell asleep with the television on, blonde heads on the same pillow, both snuggling the same toy between them, and slept soundly the rest of the night.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That was how Jack found them in the morning. He chuckled to himself at the sight of them and grabbed his phone to take their picture without waking them. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he went into the kitchen to make breakfast. He decided to make French toast and some of the god-awful turkey bacon Fraiser was always trying to foist upon all of them. Some of it had made its way into his house when his team had gone grocery shopping for him after his knee surgery. He was pretty sure it was Carter's fault anyway, so if he could feed some of it to her now he would feel much better about its presence in his house.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The kids showed up, both rumpled and adorably sleepy, right on cue as soon as breakfast was ready, drawn out of slumber by the smells wafting through the house from the kitchen.

"Good morning, campers," Jack greeted, turning with both hands full of plates to set them on the table, both kids attacked his legs in giant morning hugs, taking him by surprise. He couldn't do anything about it except try not to fall on them or dump bacon on their heads, as his hands were full.

"Hi Colonel!"

"Hi Colonel Jack, what are we doing today?" Daniel asked, hurrying over to the table and climbing up onto his chair carefully.

"Eat first," Jack said, setting the food down. "Then you guys can play inside while I shower, we'll all get ready, and go to the grocery store."

"Awww, man!" they groaned.

"We need food. You two are picky, but you're picky bottomless pits," he told them matter of factly.

"We can just have pizza every day," Sam suggested hopefully.

"We won't tell Dr. Janet," Daniel promised enthusiastically.

Jack laughed. "Interesting idea, but I don't think it's a very good one in the long run. Tell you what, we'll get some stuff at the grocery store and make our own pizzas one night. That'll be fun, huh?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Yeah… I guess," Daniel agreed as they dug into the breakfast Jack piled on both their plates.

Sam ate enthusiastically at first, but quickly seemed to become preoccupied with something on her mind. Jack knew the look well, as she often had to be reminded that the food on her tray in the commissary was unlikely to beam itself directly into her stomach - at least not without Thor's help.

"Sam? What's wrong?" he asked, catching Daniel's juice cup right before it spilled, sloshing only a little on his hands in the process.

"Nothing," she said with a heavy sigh, turning huge, pleading eyes on him that he knew meant trouble. "I just really, really wanted to drive the Jeep this morning after breakfast, that's all."

"Right after breakfast, huh?" Jack asked. "And you?" he turned to Daniel.

"I like to drive it too," he said. "And I wanted to play dinosaur ex-ca-va-tion in the yard."

"Hmm. Well, okay, if you guys eat the rest of your breakfast, then get dressed, you can play outside for a while first. Then you can come watch a movie while I get cleaned up. I don't want you outside while I'm in the shower. And after THAT we are going to the grocery store where I expect you both to behave like model soldiers."

"Yes, sir!" Sam promised eagerly, taking an overlarge bite of bacon to emphasize her compliance.

"Y-yes, sir," Daniel echoed, shoveling toast in his mouth.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack sat on his deck and watched in amusement as the kids took turns driving the Jeep around, nursing his third cup of coffee. They were night and day on that thing. Sam drove around in a pattern that was only predictable in that she drove at top speed, all the time, and seemed to be trying to flip the whole thing over with hairpin turns every fifteen to thirty seconds, giggling and shouting with glee most of the time.

Daniel drove around like he was on a day tour, and in fact quickly made up a game where he pretended to be a tour guide, stopping at various "historical sites" around Jack's yard so he could point them out and provide background information to Sam (his impatient, captive audience) as to their cultural significance.

Jack had to stop himself laughing out loud as he heard Daniel say, "And just past the pyramids on the left, you'll notice the Ancient JackO'NeillTree. This tree has stood since the paleo… paleo-fliffic time. Dinosaurs used to scratch their horns on it to sharpen them for battle."

"Really?" Sam asked, looking at the ordinary-looking tree with newfound respect.

"Yes," Daniel continued, creeping the Jeep along to the flower bed. "And over here is the site of the Daniel dinosaur pit, where tons of dinosaur bones have been discovered. Rumor has it many more lie still buried underneath. Do you want to get out and explore the area?"

"No," Sam said firmly. She had had enough of going slow!

"Saaaaam," Daniel whined. "Come on, we'll bury my plastic dinosaurs and have a ex-ca-va-tion."

"Daniel, that's BORING. I want to drive the Jeep again. You're too slow."

"Hey," Jack called, interrupting before an all-out fight could erupt.

"Daniel, go and get your dinosaurs, you can play in the flower bed all you want. Sam, come here."

She reluctantly climbed out of the Jeep and trudged over to him slowly, dragging her feet, as Daniel hurried past her into the house to fetch his dinosaurs and shovel.

When Sam finally stopped in front of him, Jack had to work hard to keep the smile off his face. She was carrying on as though she were about to be executed, before she even knew what he was going to say. He was very glad she wasn't quite so dramatic as an adult.

"I'm very glad you like the Jeep, and you did a good job taking turns with Daniel on it."

She looked up at him, surprised. That didn't _sound like she was in trouble…_

"_BUT," _Jack continued. "Just because you like to play with it differently doesn't mean your way is better than Daniel's. If you want him to sit with you while you careen around like a demented roller coaster, then you better be prepared to sit there while he takes you on a site-seeing tour. Got it?"

"But I DID!"

"I know you did. But you clearly were unhappy about it. Sometimes you have to play what Daniel wants to play, so that when it's your turn to pick, he'll play what you want to play." He had noticed that Sam tended to boss Daniel around quite a bit, and more often than not they ended up playing whatever Sam wanted to play. Daniel did seem content enough with the arrangement, most of the time, but still. Jack figured this was a good time to talk about it a little.

"Now, you guys don't always have to play together," Jack continued. "If you want to play by yourselves for a while, that's fine. Daniel can play with his dinosaurs, and you can play with the Jeep some more."

"Thank you!" she yelled, hugging him quickly and running back to it.

For the next hour, Daniel played in the dirt and Sam drove the Jeep around until the battery died. After that, Jack insisted they come in so he could get a shower and get dressed. He set the kids up in the living room watching a cartoon and went off for a quick shower.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Do you think we'll get to play with Uncle Teal'c today?" Daniel asked hopefully five minutes after they were left alone.

"I hope so!" Sam exclaimed. "I want to show him the Jeep! And how we can ride our big girl bikes now!"

"Mine's a big BOY bike," Daniel reminded her.

"I know. And maybe we could go to the playground with him. He could probably push us so hard on the swings we'd go right over the bar!"

"That would be awesome!" Daniel agreed.

"Let's call him and ask him to come play," Sam decided, getting off the couch.

"How?" Daniel asked.

"We'll use that little phone the Colonel is always using. The one without any cords. He calls everyone on that phone."

"I saw it in the kitchen. But I don't know how it works."

They quickly found the cell phone on the kitchen counter and set to work trying to figure out how to call Teal'c on it, multiple little fingers pressing multiple buttons.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Jack came out of the bedroom dressed and showered, the kids were sitting on the couch, side by side, staring at the tv intently. TOO intently. They wouldn't look at him.

"Guys? What did you do?" he asked.

"Nothing," they said quickly.

He looked at them another minute, then glanced around. Nothing was obviously out of place or anything… he shrugged. "Okay, come on then. Time to go to the store."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


	14. Chapter 14

Ch 14

Daniel and Sam were bored. They were sitting side by side in the front of the cart, legs dangling but feeling very confined.

"I don't like that," Daniel complained as Jack added several bags of frozen vegetables to the cart's contents.

"You'll like my special secret recipe," Jack promised.

Sam swung her legs impatiently, accidentally kicking Jack in the leg in the process as he tried to push the cart.

"Sam," Jack complained. It was the fifth time. He was losing his patience.

"Sorry, Colonel," she apologized. "But it's just so boring in the cart. Can we please get down and walk?"

"We can help! You can tell us what to get and we'll bring it!" Daniel said quickly.

Jack shook his head firmly. "I'm not having you both running all over the store."

They both pouted.

"All right. Fine. You can get out and walk. But you both hang onto the cart at all times."

They nodded eagerly - anything to get out of those baby seats in the cart!

Being allowed to walk was marginally better… and Daniel managed to sneak a big bag of cookies into the cart while Jack was busy tying Sam's shoe into double knots for her.

Finally, the cart was completely full and Jack was convinced they wouldn't have to come back here for at least a week. He was hoping he could get the kids to eat at least half of what he'd bought, despite the fact that all Sam claimed to want was marshmallows and peanut butter and Daniel kept sneaking things into the cart when he thought Jack wasn't paying attention.

It was near lunch time already and the store was packed. As Jack picked the shortest line he could find, he groaned to himself. There were seven people in front of him, even though he was in the self-check lane. This was going to take forever.

Sam and Daniel felt the same way seeing the length of the line they were expected to wait patiently in. looking around, bored, Sam spotted something quickly and grinned.

"Colonel O'Neill, are those games?" she asked, pointing to the row of video games and claw machines against the front wall of the store.

Jack nodded warily. "But…"

"Please can we go play?" she asked immediately.

Jack felt around in his pockets and fished out a few quarters. "Okay," he said, satisfied that they couldn't last very long on games that were foreign to them with only a few quarters apiece. He could easily see them from the line. "Stay together, and come back over here when you're out of quarters. Don't talk to anybody."

They nodded eagerly and took off, holding hands and weaving through the sea of adults easily.

Once Daniel and Sam reached the bank of games, they stopped and stared, trying to figure out exactly what to do. An older boy went over to the farthest game. They watched him put some quarters in the right slot and hit a button, then start playing with the joystick and buttons.

"I can't see this one," Sam complained, trying to see the screen of the first game.

"Me either," Daniel said. He turned his attention to the claw game. "Let's do this one."

"Okay," she agreed, sticking a quarter in the slot. The game started up. She watched as the claw moved around, assuming you were supposed to try to grab one of the toys below. Moving the joystick experimentally, she saw that it controlled the claw.

"Go back!" Daniel instructed.

Between the two of them, they played the game until all their quarters were gone and still hadn't managed to actually grab anything. Disappointed, Daniel asked, "Got anymore quarters?"

Sam felt around in her pockets and shook her head, but pulled out a crumpled dollar. "But I got some of our swear dollars," she grinned.

"I don't see a spot to put in dollars," Daniel frowned, examining the machine.

"Let's do that one! That old lady put a dollar in it before and she won candy," Sam pointed to a vending machine nearby.

"Do you think Colonel Jack will let us eat candy? Doctor Janet told him not to," Daniel remembered.

They tried to see him, standing on their tiptoes and craning their necks in his direction. They couldn't see him amongst all the adults. "My brother teached me this when he was trying not to get caught throwing water balloons at cars," Sam said, getting down on her hands and knees. "Stand on my back but don't fall and be real still."

Daniel grabbed the joystick of the claw game for balance and did as instructed, jumping off quickly once he spotted Jack. "He's at the checkout, he's busy with all the stuff swiping it through the thingy."

"It's called a scanner," Sam informed him bossily, getting to her feet and brushing her hands off. "Okay, good, then he's not looking. Come on."

She hurried over to the vending machine in what she thought was a sneaky manner, Daniel following and trying to spot Jack. Between the two of them, they figured out how to get their dollar in and press the buttons that matched the letters and numbers next to the candy they wanted. Fishing in Sam's pockets yielded three dollars, so they ended up with a KitKat, a Snickers, and a bag of M&Ms, which they decided to share. They quickly crammed everything in their pockets and tried to look innocent as they headed back over to Jack.

He glanced at them as he continued bagging groceries. "No luck with the claw game?"

They shook their heads, trying to look disappointed.

"Well, we're almost done. We'll go home, have lunch, and play."

Jack buckled them into their seats and then turned his attention to loading all the groceries into the bed of the truck. While he did this, the kids were in the back seat eating candy as quickly as they could.

"He's coming!" Daniel exclaimed as they heard the gate slam shut. They both shoved a handful of M&Ms into their mouths just in time, quickly pocketing the rest of the candy as Jack climbed behind the wheel and started the car.

He turned to look at them. "All set?"

They both nodded, unable to speak. As eager to get home as they were, Jack put the truck in reverse.

He frowned as he pulled onto his street. Not only did he now have a headache, because Sam and Daniel had suddenly burst into loud and repeated choruses of "Row Row Row Your Boat" halfway home, and could not be stopped or deferred to another song, but he recognized Janet Fraiser's car parked in front of his house.

"What did we do to deserve a surprise house call?" he muttered to himself as he pulled in the driveway, wondering if it would be too rude to get the diminutive doctor to help him bring in the groceries.

She was waiting at the front door with a worried look on her face and her cell phone in her hand.

"What's up, Doc?" Jack asked, eliciting enthusiastic giggles from the kids for the little joke.

"General Hammond and I have both been unable to reach you today. He was concerned and asked me to come check on you all."

Jack shrugged. "We were at the grocery store. I couldn't find my cell when we were heading out the door."

Sam and Daniel exchanged guilty looks at that, which he filed away to address later, and then promptly started chasing each other around the yard at top speed.

"What's got into them?" Janet asked, watching the frenetic four year olds with the critical eye of a doctor.

"Nothing," Jack said defensively. "They're four."

"You didn't give them coffee for breakfast again, did you?"

"I never GAVE it to them in the first place! You're the one who left an unattended coffee pot within reach."

"Hmm. Well, anyway. Hammond wants you at a meeting at 3 to go over what they've learned about the egg. You can bring the kids with you or if you want, I can take them to my house. I have the afternoon off and Cassie gets home at 3:30. I know she would love to see them."

"Thanks… but they've been asking for Teal'c all day. I think it's time to let Uncle Teal'c fulfill some of his babysitting duties."

Janet shrugged. "All right. I'll have an airman drop him off here after two."

"Thanks. You want to stay for lunch to make sure I'm not poisoning them?" he asked a bit sarcastically, handing her a lightweight bag of groceries and taking the other three himself.

"I don't think that's necessary," Janet said mildly, following him inside.

"Oy! Inside, you two!" Jack called, unwilling to leave them alone in the front of the house, so close to the street.

The kids ran inside, past both adults, screaming and still chasing each other.

"Good lord, they're like windup toys," Janet said, as they disappeared down the hall that lead to their room.

Jack nodded and started unpacking the groceries somewhat self-consciously, knowing the doctor was scrutinizing his choices critically.

A loud crash from the back of the house drew their attention, but Daniel quickly called, "We're okay! Sam just fell off the bed is all!"

"Oh brother," Janet said, hurrying off to check for herself.

Jack thought to himself that Sam couldn't have fallen off the bed unless they'd been JUMPING on the bed, and had to admit to himself that they did seem even more crazy-energetic than usual all of a sudden. He pondered this while he quickly put the rest of the groceries away and started making them all sandwiches for lunch.

The reason became clear a few minutes later when Janet shepherded them into the kitchen, a hand on each little shoulder. Each kid had chocolate remnants on their faces and was clutching empty candy wrappers.

"Where exactly did all this candy come from?" Janet demanded. "Do you know what this much sugar does to such tiny bodies, Colonel? I'm getting tired of having this conversation with you…"

"It's not his fault," Daniel interrupted quickly.

"We were sneaky," Sam added, looking down at her shoes. "The Colonel didn't know. We got candy at the grocery store."

"You STOLE candy?" Jack demanded, forgetting to curb his angry, harsh tone.

Sam's eyes welled up instantly at his tone, and he felt terrible when she shook her head, sniffling, crying, and tried to explain in the middle of her sudden fit, "W…we didn't steal it."

"We didn't," Daniel echoed, rubbing his nose and crying a little too. "We used our swear dollars."

"I had some of em in my pocket," Sam said. "We got the candy from one of the games. You push the right buttons and candy comes out."

"A vending machine?" Janet asked.

"I dunno," Daniel said, as Sam shrugged.

Jack sighed. "Sorry, guys. You shouldn't have bought candy without asking, or eaten it without asking, but I'm very glad you didn't take it without paying. Come here."

They both approached warily, but he just plopped them gently on the counter next to the sink and carefully wiped off their faces, removing all traces of tears and chocolate with a damp wash cloth.

"Now, do you have any room for lunch or are you all full of candy?"

"Full of candy."

"Okay. Go play outside then, and we'll eat later. Run off the rest of your crazy sugar highs." He set them both back on the ground, ruffling their hair affectionately as they ran off.

"Well, I'd better be off," Janet said. "I have some errands to run before Cassie gets home and…"

The kids ran back inside at full speed, looking very worried about something, and both suddenly stood in front of Jack, building a little wall between him and Janet.

"What's going on, guys?" Jack asked, puzzled.

"We don't want you to get in trouble," Daniel said.

"Nobody's in trouble," he said, confused.

"Colonel Jack DID RICE his knee just like you said, Dr. Janet," Sam said quickly. "Don't make him go back to the infirmary, please!"

Jack laughed.

"Why would I…"

"We helped him, he almost forgotted but we helped him!" Daniel insisted.

"Yeah, about that. You owe me, Doc," Jack said lightly.

"What on earth are you three…" Janet started.

Jack explained the whole misunderstanding, about the kids thinking he needed dry rice poured onto his knee as a result of overhearing her. She was laughing heartily by the end of the story, and the kids were contributing their own versions of the story every now and then too.

"Then Colonel O'Neill explained the rice wasn't real rice, it was just a anagram," Sam said.

"That's when the letters stand for something," Daniel added proudly.

"Actually, that's an acronym," Janet corrected.

"It is?" Jack, Sam, and Daniel all asked together.

Janet gave Jack a strange look, and he shrugged. "Oops."

Daniel and Sam scowled at Jack for several moments, as though he had intentionally told them the wrong word to make them look foolish, but quickly forgave him in favor of asking, "What are we doing next?

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

A'N: See? I'm trying to do a lot better on the updating. Don't worry, people who were saying they wanted to see Janet have a turn with the kids. Her time will come! It's just Teal'c's turn for a little while first. Thank you so much for the reviews and the good wishes about our move. It's kind of weird being in the south for the first time. Not weird in a bad way, just different. We went to this town Christmas light thing where everyone was so excited because there was a snow machine... because it DOESN'T snow here much. that's just crazy to me, lol! I'll get used to it... anyway, on with the show. I get out of school next week so I will have some time to write faster then, I hope.

Ch 15

"Don't forget about your phone, Colonel," Janet reminded him as they walked her to the door on her way out. "General Hammond was pretty upset when he couldn't reach you."

"Oh, I'll find it," Jack said, casting the kids a knowing look. "I have a feeling I know just where to look."

They exchanged guilty looks and took off, yelling, "Bye, Doctor Janet!" as they retreated back into the house.

She laughed, watching them go. "They're so cute like this."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Makes it a lot harder to yell at them for pissing me off."

"Uh-huh," she said, smiling knowingly. For all the gruff appearances he liked to maintain, she doubted she'd ever met a man who was better with children. When it came to handling them emotionally and keeping them entertained, that is. The other stuff…

"That reminds, me, Colonel," she said, turning back to face him with a no-nonsense look on her face.

"What?" he asked, defensive. It was his automatic response to that look on her face.

"Those kids are getting more than a little ripe! Have you given them a bath at all?"

"Uh… no. I helped you with Sam's hair that time…"

She rolled her eyes. "They've clearly been playing outdoors a lot. Sam's hair looks like a rat's nest and Daniel's isn't too far behind."

"They wash their hands before we eat," Jack defended. _most of the time, _he added silently to himself.

"Colonel, come on. I know you're hesitant because it's Sam and Daniel, but if you want to keep them here with you you've got to keep them clean."

"All right, fine," he grumbled. "I'll make them take baths before bed tonight. How's that, doc?"

"Good," she said, glancing at her watch. "Oh dear. Now I really have to go. I'll be in touch - and let me know if you need someone to watch them for a spell. If I'm not available and Cassie is, I know she would love to babysit."

"Yeah, okay. Bye, Doc."

He shut the door after her and turned, sighing heavily and trudging back inside. "Sam! Daniel!"

They were in their room, drawing pictures. They both gave him sweet, innocent smiles, and he was immediately presented with several hastily drawn pictures of himself with the kids doing various things. All clearly meant to butter him up. He tried hard not to fall for it. "Great. We'll hang them up later. Right now I need you to tell me what you've done with my phone."

They exchanged looks again and Sam bit her lip.

"We wanted to talk to Uncle Teal'c," Daniel admitted finally.

Sam nudged him. "We didn't break it!" she said quickly.

"We're pretty sure it's not broken," Daniel agreed.

Jack groaned. "Pretty sure?"

Sam went over to their bed and pulled the phone out from its hiding spot under her pillow. "We called some people by accident I think. But we couldn't call Uncle Teal'c."

"Then we hit some buttons…" Daniel continued.

"And all the letters went all funny," Sam concluded, handing the phone over to him.

Jack groaned as he quickly looked at the display and tried to pull up the menu screen. They'd switched the language on his phone to another language… and he wasn't even sure which language!

"Great," he mumbled, mentally wondering how long it would take to find someone on base who spoke whatever language it was now in and switch it back for him. The irony was that in all probability, it was a language Daniel himself knew… or would know… or _had _known… whatever. Jack felt the beginnings of a headache coming on.

"What are we gonna do on the base?" Sam asked for the thousandth time from the backseat.

Jack had slightly altered the plans, feeling the kids (and Teal'c) were less likely to get in trouble if they played with their "Uncle Jaffa" on the base. He wasn't sure they were ready to send Teal'c to the park with them alone. Anyway, the kids were happy enough to be going back to the base, and had insisted on changing into their little makeshift SG-1 uniforms again. In an effort to appease Fraiser, and Hammond, should they run into him this afternoon, Jack had scrubbed down their faces and arms and mostly managed to untangle their hair.

Daniel's had ended up plastered to his head with water in the process, and was now drying a bit crazy, but there wasn't much he could do about that. The ponytail he'd tried to put in Sam's hair had been rejected three times before he'd given up and told her she'd just have to wear it down. She'd responded by putting his sunglasses back on stubbornly.

He'd had them pack a little backpack of things to play with, but really figured they'd be more likely to go play in the gym again with Teal'c. he'd heard them talking a lot about how much fun it was to play with Teal'c because he was "the biggest, strongest person ever in the whole wide world."

"Colonel?" the little voice piped up again from the backseat, punctuated by a kick to the back of his seat. "I asked what we're going to do?"

"Sorry. Just thinking. You're going to do whatever Teal'c tells you to, that's what you're going to do. While I go to a meeting and then try to get a little work done."

"Why couldn't I bring my bike?" Daniel whined. Again.

Jack bit back a groan. The kids had come down from their sugar high hard. They were both very cranky, but he hadn't had time to get them a nap before they had to go to the base. He'd fed them as much of a carb-and-protein heavy lunch as he could, hoping it would somehow help balance things out in their little bodies, and hoped Teal'c didn't hate him too much for dropping off overtired, over-sugared kids with him. At least, he hoped Teal'c wouldn't remember the event next time the two of them were boxing…

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Teal'c was finishing an afternoon snack in the commissary when the rest of his team entered - or rather, when the children who were now Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson burst through the commissary doors at full speed, yelling his name and running towards him as fast as their little legs would carry them. They both threw themselves at him in enthusiastic hugs, then immediately began talking very rapidly, apparently trying to tell them every single thing they had done since the last time they had seen him.

After several moments of this, Teal'c held up both hands for silence. They stopped, waiting eagerly to hear what he was going to say, grinning up at him adoringly. Before he had too much time to wonder what exactly he had done to inspire such loyalty from these children, since they had no memory of him as adults, after all, O'Neill had tossed a back pack onto the table Teal'c had been eating at and called hastily, "Here are the little angels, Teal'c, I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time with them, see you all later!" and was retreating out of the commissary.

Several members of base personnel who were in the room began laughing quietly to themselves then. A sharp look from Teal'c silenced them, and he looked back at the children and gave them the smile O'Neill had made him practice for several hours when Cassandra Fraiser had first come to Earth.

"Children, you may tell me of your exploits at a slower pace. We have time for lengthy tales. Now, come, we will go to the gym, unless you would prefer to do something else."

"Gym!" they both yelled happily.

"Very well."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack tried to pay attention in the briefing. He really did. He knew it was important. It was about the damn egg, after all. But it seemed to him the geeks were just doing a lot of waffling. Either they hadn't learned squat and were trying to hide it, or they were just really, really, really going for the slow dramatic build up here. Jack was pretty sure it was just the former. He missed Carter and Daniel. Not the kids - well, he kind of missed them too - but he missed his adult teammates. Even though he acted like they bugged him too sometimes, the truth was they were actually the best at giving Jack the information he needed in a way he could tolerate receiving it. The rest of these geeks… not so much. Jack resisted the urge to drop his head on the table in front of him as one scientist said something about how awesome the robot arms were they were using to study the thing.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Wow, what are they doing?" Sam asked, mouth hanging open as she watched the rather intense sparring match taking place in the gym. SG-3 and SG-12 were having one of their semi-regular, very competitive sparring sessions. The team members not currently fighting were cheering their respective teammates on and hassling the other guy.

"They are training," Teal'c said, placing a hand on each child's shoulder. "Come. We will go elsewhere."

"Awww, can't we stay and watch?" Sam asked.

Teal'c looked at the little girl in confusion. All he knew of little girls was from Cassandra Fraiser - who would not have enjoyed watching such a thing, unless perhaps it was himself and Colonel O'Neill fighting. "This would amuse you?" he asked.

Her nose wrinkled. "It would be fun," she said, sort of guessing at his meaning.

"Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.

Daniel's eyes widened as he saw someone - Major Pierce - go down hard on the mat. "Uh, yeah. Let's watch."

Teal'c shrugged slightly. "Very well."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Wait, what?" Jack interrupted, snapping up straight in his chair as his brain absently alerted him to something Geek Guy 2 was droning on about. "Back it up, Zippy, did you just say you found _instructions _on the outside of the damn thing?"

"Well, maybe, sir." Swallowing hard and blinking owlishly behind large glasses, the scientist continued. "We, we, we think so. It's definitely writing, of some sort. Miniscule. But it stands to reason that it would be instructions… although I don't think the translators have had much luck translating any of it yet…"

"Oh," Jack said, settling back down and trying not to feel too disappointed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"GO UNCLE TEAL'C! GO UNCLE TEAL'C!" Daniel shouted at the top of his lungs, waving his fist in the air.

"GET HIM! GET HIM!" Sam yelled, jumping up and down in place. It hadn't taken long for someone to challenge Teal'c to a match, and the kids had been eager to see him in action. He sure wasn't disappointing them either! They watched him beat person after person, applying just enough force so they'd feel it tomorrow but not enough to seriously injure them. It was more about technique. And his technique was impressive, even to four year olds. Perhaps ESPECIALLY to four year olds.

"WHOA, I think he's going down," Daniel called to Sam above the din of all the cheering.

"Huh?" she yelled back, just as the guy Teal'c was fighting hit the ground hard. He'd been sweating profusely, refusing to back down in the fight even though Teal'c clearly had him beat… repeatedly. Everyone crowded around the guy who was down, and even Teal'c's attention was on his fallen opponent. He wanted to make sure he had not injured the man. If the man had insisted on pushing himself beyond his own limits, that was his own fault, not Teal'c's. still, he was willing and ready to assist the man to the infirmary, were it needed.

"Uncle Teal'c's not watching us," Sam said quickly, nudging Daniel pointedly and pulling her ID badge out of her pants pocket.

Daniel looked worried. "I dunno, Sam. We're going to get in trouble…"

"Let's just go explore for a little bit. We'll come right back. That guy will probably be knocked out for a while, I mean, look how strong Uncle Teal'c is!"

"Okay," Daniel agreed, pulling out his own badge and grinning, despite himself.

The kids snuck away, headed straight for the elevator.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Colonel, while you're here on base, why don't you make some headway on all those reports you owe me," Hammond suggested after the meeting ended and everyone else had left.

"Oh, nothing would please me more, sir," Jack said dryly.

"And bring my little goddaughter by to see me sometime before you head out, if you don't mind. I'd forgotten how entertaining that little button is."

"Oh yeah, she's a peach," Jack said, sliding his phone across the table. "Check out her latest *adorable* little game."

Hammond looked at the phone in confusion, but quickly chuckled. "Is that Hungarian?"

"Beats me. With your permission, sir, I'd like to find someone who can fix it before I get started on all that wonderful paperwork."

"Granted," Hammond said, chuckling. "Dismissed, Jack."

Jack got up to leave, pocketing the phone after Hammond slid it back to him.

"Oh, Jack?" Hammond called after him, causing O'Neill to pause in the doorway and turn back around. "I did warn you about her."

"Oh, I know you did, sir," Jack said. "But frankly, I don't think you knew the half of what that little child is capable of… or maybe she's just doubled her efforts with Daniel's assistance or something. Remind me to tell you how my living room ended up covered in rice and my kitchen covered in beer and flour some day, sir."

Hammond chuckled and waved Jack on again.

Jack had made it about three steps down the hallway before Walter came on the PA system. "Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond to the Control Room. Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond to the Control Room. We have a… situation."

Jack groaned. Sam and Daniel. He just knew it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"It's hide and seek!" Sam giggled. "It's fun!"

"But we didn't ask if they wanted to play," Daniel answered.

"They're playing now," Sam whispered, as several pairs of combat boots ran past their hiding place, all clearly looking for them.

"I still think we're going to be in trouble," Daniel grumbled.

TBC.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Sorry, sorry, sorry!

There is no excuse for how long it's taken me to update. If anyone is still interested in reading this, thank you, and please accept my apologies. All I can say in my defense is that, in addition to being abnormally busy lately, I am having some trouble deciding which direction to take this story. I have three different potential versions mapped out, and I like them all!

I will try to do better.

Ch 16

Daniel and Sam had successfully eluded capture for an hour and a half. Something that Hammond was definitely going to have to bring up with his security teams as soon as possible, because really, that was just unacceptable to him. But in the meantime, he was standing behind his desk, arms crossed, and his firmest "Upset General" scowl on as he looked down at the two little soldiers in front of him. The slightly grimy children, "uniforms" more than a bit wrinkled, were looking down at their feet, mumbling apologies.

"We just went to explore for a minute," Sam tried to explain.

"Uncle Teal'c was helping the man who was sleeping," Daniel said.

"You mean knocked out," Sam corrected.

"He briefly lost consciousness due to his own folly," Teal'c contributed from the doorway, where he and O'Neill were standing, each with their arms crossed firmly over their chests.

"Yeah, that," Daniel said, nodding.

"Anyway," Sam continued. "We just wanted to check out the base a tiny bit and we were going to come right back…"

"Only we got lost," Daniel said.

"… And we heard voices coming fast while we were lost."

"… So we hid in a bathroom to get out of their way."

"… then we decided to play hide and seek."

"… so we would be found, and wouldn't be lost anymore."

"… and we heard everyone on the walkie talkies looking so we thought they were playing."

"… so we hid some more."

"… and kept hiding."

"… Till Uncle Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill founded us."

"… and we're sorry we got everyone in trouble."

"…specially ourselves," they concluded ruefully, together.

"Well," Hammond said, trying hard not to smile during their explanation. "You two better just count yourselves lucky that there weren't any base emergencies while I had half my personnel sticking their heads in ventilation shafts and cabinets looking for you two."

"Yes, sir," Sam said, and Daniel quickly echoed.

"Now, I want you two to take Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill home and you make sure they both keep their eyes on you ALL evening, to make sure nobody gets up to any more mischief."

"Yes, sir!"

The kids brightened considerably at the thought that Teal'c would be coming home with them. Teal'c and Jack exchanged slight looks and groaned, knowing that this was their own special brand of punishment from Hammond. Telling the kids to make sure they were stuck to the two men like glue all night was probably going to be all _sorts _of fun.

"Let's go," Jack called to the kids.

They hurried over to him and were about to leave when Sam suddenly scampered back over to Hammond. "Do you want to come with us too, Uncle George?" she offered with a hopeful smile. "I can show you how I can ride my bike without training wheels now! Colonel O'Neill taught me. Daniel too, but I learnt it first. And…"

"I'm sorry, Sammy, but I still have work to do here. Tell you what, next time you two are here on the base, you come up and see me for a while, okay? Maybe I can show your friends here that it _is _possible to keep you two out of trouble."

"Yes, sir," Sam said happily, hugging him sweetly before running back over to join everyone waiting for her in the doorway.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the truck on the way home, Teal'c reached over and switched the radio so that the sound was only coming out of the back speakers, turned it up a little, and said quietly to O'Neill, "How are the children gaining access to other floors of the SGC, O'Neill?"

He shrugged. "They get help with the elevator. Maybe they found the emergency exit shafts too, who knows."

"Those doors are too heavy for such small children to open."

"Hmm… you're right. But… come on, are you suggesting they're hotwiring the elevator? Carter's _four, _T. even she couldn't…" he trailed off, wondering. There was no way. Was there?

He thought about it until they got home. As soon as they were inside, he marched them over to the couch and set them down side by side. He sat down on the edge of the coffee table in front of them so he could see their faces closely. "Okay, you two. Were you using the elevators today? And getting through doors?"

"Yes, sir," they admitted.

"How?"

They looked at each other automatically.

"Don't look at each other, look at me," Jack said quickly. "How did you do that?"

"We had help," Sam said quickly.

"From?"

"A man and a lady," Daniel said.

"You said that last time," Jack shook his head. "And I know it's not true this time because the whole base was alerted. If you'd been seen by someone they'd have called Hammond, not helped you. Now, if you tell me the truth right now I promise not to punish you."

Both kids solemnly reached into the pockets of their cargo pants and pulled out the IDs they had found, handing them to him wordlessly. He took the familiar items in surprise. "How did you get these?"

"We finded them in the locker room when you were getting dressed."

"They have our names on them!" Sam defended immediately. "We thought they were for us!"

"Well, why didn't you ask me?"

"We just wanted to have them a little bit first," Daniel tried to explain.

Jack sighed. Truthfully, he couldn't blame the children. The badges had their names written right on them, plain as day. He wondered why they didn't question the pictures of adults on them, but was kind of afraid to bring it up.

"Now that we showed them to you are we gonna get our pictures on them?" Sam asked hopefully.

"Ah, no," Jack said, pocketing the IDs. The kids looked disappointed. Hammond's last words still ringing in his ears, Jack smiled and said, "BUT I might be persuaded to give them back to you when you go play with dear Uncle George. IF you don't show them to him."

They grinned happily. Teal'c, who had been watching the interrogation with his arms crossed, raised an eyebrow at O'Neill's final decision, but said nothing.

"Can we get up now?" Sam asked.

Jack nodded.

"Yaaaaaaay, come on Uncle Teal'c, the Jeep is recharged and I wanna show it to you!"

"I wanna show you my bike!" Daniel yelled at the same time as the kids both scrambled for the sliding glass door that led out back.

"You're up, Uncle Teal'c," Jack said, clapping his friend's shoulder. "I'm gonna go start dinner. Try not to lose the kids in the back yard."

Scowling at that, Teal'c hurried after the children nonetheless, determined not to let them out of his sight this time.

Teal'c stepped out onto the patio and it was only his Jaffa training that saved him from being mowed down by Sam as she zoomed by in her little Jeep. "Whoops!" she called apologetically, clambering the thing loudly down the stairs so hard her teeth rattled. Okay, maybe it wasn't meant to be as off-road as a full-sized Jeep… but luckily it didn't turn over. She zipped off into the yard, plowing through Daniel's "excavation site" obliviously as she went on her merry way.

Daniel was riding his bike somewhat clumsily up to Teal'c, but grinning proudly from ear to ear. "See, Uncle Teal'c? I tried and tried and tried and now I can do it without training wheels."

"Indeed, you have accomplished a remarkable feat," Teal'c praised. "You should be very proud of yourself, Daniel Jackson. You possess a skill that I do not."

Daniel braked in front of him and set his feet down. "You don't know how to ride a bike?"

"I do not," Teal'c confirmed. "On Ch… where I am from, we do not have bicycles."

"Wow," Daniel said. He looked down at his own bike and said, "I'm sorry, Uncle Teal'c. I wish I could share my bike with you but I don't think it's big enough for you."

"That is quite all right, Daniel Jackson. You enjoy your bicycle, and I will enjoy watching you ride it."

"Okay," Daniel agreed, relieved. He started to pedal off, then stopped. "Hey, maybe we can get Colonel Jack to teach you to ride too, if we get a big enough bike!"

Teal'c tilted his head and smiled. "Perhaps," he agreed, not wanting to argue with the boy over the usefulness of learning such a skill.

The kids were happy on their vehicles for a while, but soon agreed they'd better spend their time with Teal'c actually playing with him. They abandoned their toys and ran over to him eagerly. "Will you play with us?"

"I will play anything except hide and seek," Teal'c responded. They grinned and each one grabbed a hand.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jack stuck his head out the back door to make sure everyone was doing okay in the middle of his dinner preparations. He chuckled as he saw his three teammates playing leapfrog. Or attempting to, at any rate. Teal'c could easily leap over both children at once (probably even if they weren't crouched down like frogs), but the kids could only make it over each other. When they tried to leap over Teal'c, it was a scrambling, flailing whirl of little arms and legs, until Teal'c sort of shifted to help dump them over his shoulders, grabbing them as they fell face first over him in time to stop them from face-planting in the grass.

"I almost made it over you that time!" Sam declared after one such attempt.

"Watch me, I'll do it this time for sure!" Daniel insisted, crouching down low, ready to spring.

Jack felt a twinge in his knee that reminded him to take his pills and was infinitely glad they hadn't thought of leapfrog with _him _as he went back inside to finish dinner.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What now?" Daniel asked breathlessly when the leap frog game lost its excitement.

"Umm… monkey in the middle!" Sam declared.

"Yeah!"

They turned to Teal'c, who merely said, "I know what a monkey is, but where are we going to procure one and how do we get it to remain in the middle?"

The kids giggled incessantly at this, and Sam explained the game while Daniel went to fetch a ball.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


	17. Chapter 17

Ch 17

"Dinner's ready!" Jack yelled out the back door. "Wish I had a cowbell or something," he added to himself as the kids failed to respond, too wrapped up in their game.

Apparently Sam and Daniel's version of monkey in the middle meant that whoever was in the middle had to actually act like a monkey, loud noises and all.

"OY! I said DINNER'S READY!" Jack called again.

Finally, Teal'c lobbed the ball to Daniel, who was in the middle, to end the game, and they all came running in, talking loudly about what they'd been doing.

As Jack surveyed the new assortment of dirt and grass stains, he had to admit Fraiser had a point earlier. They definitely needed baths tonight. Or he at least needed to hose them off like elephants, or something. "Go wash your hands," he told them, steering them towards the bathroom first.

"Have fun?" Jack asked Teal'c with a knowing smile.

"They appear to have much more energy at this age than they did previously. It seems disproportionate to their size."

"Yeah, parents have been trying to wrap their heads around that one for years. Hungry?"

"Indeed."

Teal'c and Daniel sat down at the table and started helping themselves while they waited for the kids. Jack had made a crock pot casserole-style dish of chicken, noodles, vegetables, and cheese, figuring it would be a good way to get the kids to eat some healthy food without complaint. He had made dinner rolls (from a can, but still…) and salad too.

The kids climbed into their chairs and held up their hands to show they were clean. "Good job," he said, spooning helpings onto their plates.

"Wow, who cooked this?" Sam asked innocently.

"Hey! I cooked it, thank you very much, princess. What'd you think I was doing in here?"

She shrugged. "Ordering pizza?"

Jack rolled his eyes and pointed his fork at her. "No dessert for you, young lady."

She giggled and picked up her fork, clearly unconcerned by the threat, knowing it to be completely empty.

"It's yummy," Daniel said solemnly after carefully nibbling his first bite. "Even the peas," he added thoughtfully, as though pondering how this could possibly be true.

Jack laughed. "Good. Eat up then."

After dinner was done (the kids had seconds, Teal'c had fourths), Sam said, "Can we color now?"

"No," Jack said. "You two need baths."

They looked at each other and then back at him.

"I don't need a bath," Daniel said, scooting his chair back from the table and pulling his foot up to his face to smell it. He tried hard not to react to the smell, but failed. "Okay, it's a little stinky," he admitted.

"Do you have bubble bath?" Sam asked warily.

"I will find something that will make bubbles, yes."

"All right," she agreed after giving the matter a ridiculous amount of thought. She stood up. "Come on, Daniel, let's go take a bath."

Daniel shrugged, got to his feet, and started taking his clothes off in the kitchen.

"Whoa, whoa, stop," Jack objected, when Sam sat down on the floor and started to do the same. "Let's do this in an orderly fashion, please. Go… play in your room for a few minutes, while I get everything ready."

They shrugged and went off to their room.

Muttering to himself, Jack grabbed two big plastic cups from the kitchen before going to his bathroom. He started filling the tub with warm water and added a liberal amount of the tear free shampoo Fraiser had sent home with them days ago, smiling in satisfaction when it started bubbling and foaming. He got towels and wash cloths ready and went to get the kids, noticing that Teal'c was taking his sweet time cleaning up the dinner mess to avoid having to help him with bath time.

The kids were sitting on the floor in their underwear, playing with Daniel's plastic dinosaurs.

"Forcryinoutloud," he muttered, going over to the dresser and rummaging through it. "Some things you just don't sign up for when you join the Air Force. Bathing your teammates… when they're _kids…" _

"What, Colonel?" Sam called.

"Nothing!" He pulled the items he was looking for out of the drawer triumphantly, glad he'd bought them 'just in case.' "Put these on," he instructed, tossing a swimsuit to each child.

They looked at him like he was completely insane.

"You want us to wear out swimsuits in the _tub_?" Daniel asked incredulously.

"_Why?" _Sam asked.

"Just… because. You're just going to, that's all. Consider it an order."

They looked at each other and shrugged. "We can pretend it's the beach," Sam suggested, wriggling her arms through the top of her suit.

"Great idea," Jack called, leaving the room. "Come to the bathroom when you're both ready."

Two minutes later, they came into the bathroom. Daniel was wearing trunks with alligators on them, and Sam was wearing a very flowery and ruffly two-piece that she would probably kill him for picking out when she was herself again. They were carrying every toy they owned that could get wet without being ruined.

Jack helped them into the tub and let them play for a while, stopped two water fights before they got totally out of hand, carefully washed their hair, and helped make sure they didn't miss any spots with the soap. The kids had a great time, despite their earlier reservations about taking the bath in the first place. Finally, when their fingers and toes were sufficiently raisin-like and the water was getting chilly, he helped them out, wrapping them up in big towels and sending them off to get dressed for bed while he cleaned up the bathroom.

"Bring your wet suits back in here when you're dressed and we'll hang them up for tomorrow," he said.

Their eyes widened. "We gotta take a bath every _day _now? Come on!"

Laughing, he shooed them out of the bathroom by pretending to flick them with a towel, then went to mopping up all the puddles they'd splashed everywhere.

He hadn't even finished with the first one when there was a crashing sound followed by someone crying, then Teal'c bellowing, "O'Neill! Come!"

Jack hurried towards the commotion and found everyone in the hallway. Daniel was now completely naked, holding a towel under his chin like a security blanket and shivering with the cold. Sam was latched onto Teal'c, still in her wet swimsuit, wailing like a banshee while he attempted, futilely, to comfort her with a large hand on her back.

"What happened?" Jack asked.

"We were having a race to get to our room and she slipped."

"Racing, while wet, on a hardwood floor. Forcryingoutloud, you guys. You're trying to kill me, aren't you?" he asked, stepping next to Teal'c and putting a hand on Sam's back. "Where does it hurt, Sam?"

"Ev-e-r-y-where," she sobbed, leaning off of Teal'c to grab him round the neck instead. Before he knew what was happening, she was latched onto him just as tightly as she'd been to Teal'c.

"Okay, let's all try to calm down. Teal'c, can you help get some clothes on the boy turning blue?"

Teal'c nodded and guided Daniel off to the kids' room. Jack looked around and shrugged, figuring this was as good a spot as any. He sank to the floor, back against the wall, and dragged the discarded towel lying nearby towards him with his foot, so he could keep her somewhat warm. He wrapped the towel around her like a blanket and rubbed her back through it, trying to get her to calm down enough to tell him where she was hurt.

It seemed like forever before her crying had slowed down to a quiet enough whimper and she had caught her breath enough to answer. "M-m-my face is hurted and my shoulder and my knee."

He peeled her off of him enough to check and groaned. "Hammond's gonna kill me."

She had a cut on her forehead and it was bleeding. A lot. He knew head wounds bled, but still… he was unprepared for the sight of so much blood coming from such a small person. He had felt his shirt getting wet but thought it was all just water from her wet hair, and tears. Not wanting to scare her, he tried to stay calm, and smiled. "Okay, back to the bathroom. We'll just clean you up again, okay?"

"It's hurting!"

Her hand moved to her forehead but Jack grabbed it, getting to his feet quickly with a groan for his poor knee. "Don't touch it, you'll make it worse."

"Don't call Dr. Janet!"

"Let me see how bad it looks first, Sam. Here." He set her down on the counter in the bathroom next to the sink and grabbed his first aid kit from underneath it. He cleaned all the blood away before she could see it, ignoring the fact that Teal'c and Daniel reappeared halfway through the process and were standing in the doorway, Teal'c with a hand clamped over Daniel's mouth to prevent him from saying something to scare Sam.

He was busy finding a new pad of gauze to press to the still oozing wound when Sam turned enough to catch sight of herself in the mirror, at which point she wailed, "My brains are coming out!" and promptly started screaming again.

"Shhh, shhh, your brains aren't coming out, honey," Jack promised. "If your brains were coming out I'd be taking you to the hospital. Calm down, Sam, it's okay…"

Teal'c wordlessly took Daniel away. Jack tried to comfort her again but she was so distraught he figured it would be best to just hurry up and finish the first aid so he could then spend as much time as needed calming her down. He settled for talking encouragingly while he worked, but couldn't help adding in the occasional remark to himself.

"You know, this is a lot easier when the patient isn't wriggling around and screaming…"

He couldn't help but think about all the times she'd been injured in the line of duty, and how almost every time she'd stubbornly insisted she was "Fine, Colonel" and shaken off injuries that would have sidelined any normal human being. Seeing her carrying on and on about the relatively minor injury made him wonder when the change had occurred. Probably the Academy, or maybe when her mother had died and there hadn't been anyone around to baby her when she was hurt… wondering all these things helped him ignore the distraction of her woeful wailing to concentrate on working as fast as possible.

Finally, he was done. The cut on her forehead turned out to be not too deep, once it had stopped bleeding enough for him to examine properly. It was just bleeding because it was a head wound, and that's what they did. He felt confident that the little, one-inch scratch didn't need stitches. If there'd been a doubt in his mind he would have been calling Fraiser, despite Sam's pleas that he not. All traces of blood gone, all that remained was a carefully disinfected scratch with a band-aid now plastered over it, off-centered but across a good portion of her little forehead. Her shoulder was starting to bruise already, but gentle probing had assured him it wasn't dislocated or otherwise damaged, only bruised. Her knee had a fresh strawberry on it, which he'd also cleaned out and covered with band-aids.

Satisfied with the patch-up job, he quickly helped her into a clean nightgown, knowing she must be freezing after spending so long in a wet swimsuit. She hadn't complained of the cold only because she was so focused on her injuries. He quickly gathered her stuffed unicorn and hairbrush and went in search of Teal'c and Daniel, assuming they were in the living room.

He found them around the coffee table, making something with construction paper and crayons. They smiled at Sam when they saw her, and he shifted her over in one arm so she could see them.

"The patient will survive," he declared, rubbing her back while she whimpered and hugged her unicorn with one arm, his neck with the other. He tried to set her down but she whined louder, clutching his neck tighter, so he gave up and sat down on the couch with her sideways in his lap.

"Sam, look, we're making you get well cards," Daniel said eagerly, holding up a half-finished project. "Mine's not done yet though so don't look, okay?"

"Are you all right, Samantha Carter?" Teal'c asked gently, handing her a piece of construction paper, folded in half.

Jack knew that Daniel must have insisted Teal'c make his own card, but he couldn't help the gleeful grin on his face as he saw the card the tough warrior had made. It had a simple heart on the front, and on the inside, he had written neatly in crayon, "Feel better, Samantha. From Teal'c."

As far as Jack was concerned, he was going to make certain that card never got lost. It was priceless. And he knew Carter would get a kick out of it too, when she was an adult again.

"Why don't you put in a movie, Uncle Teal'c," Jack suggested. "I think these kids are going to be up for a while."

Teal'c hurriedly complied, and as the screen filled with a familiar message and an unmistakable score, Jack groaned. "Seriously? You're exposing them to Star Wars _tonight?_"

The movie did do one good thing though: it distracted Sam from her "harrowing ordeal," as Teal'c was now referring to it. (Jack wasn't entirely sure he wasn't talking about having to _listen _to all the screaming that had occurred when he called it that, but still…) The special effects in the movie quickly fascinated Sam and also Daniel, once he had finished making the card. He climbed on the couch between Jack and Teal'c and presented it to his friend, who took it appreciatively.

Daniel had spent a lot of time drawing, apparently, everything he knew Sam liked on the card. From all four people in the room, to puppies and kittens, to General Hammond, to hot chocolate and blue jello and pizza and unicorns, it was all on the card somewhere. Stars decorated the border and there was a smiling Jeep dominating the inside. "Get well Sam I love you yur my best frend" was written on the inside, with a heart and a carefully written "Daniel Jackson." In case, you know, they weren't sure which Daniel it was from, apparently.

"Thanks, Daniel. You're my best friend too." She leaned out of Jack's lap to hug Daniel round the neck and kissed him noisily on the cheek. Daniel tried hard to look disgusted, but he was smiling sheepishly nonetheless.

Between the cards and the movie, Sam was doing much better, although she was still much more clingy than ever, clearly still needing some comfort. She refused to budge from Jack's lap, but did let him shift her to a position that didn't hurt his recovering knee. Daniel cuddled into Jack's side so he and Sam could hold hands while they watched the movie, and halfway through it Jack realized it was probably the longest the two of them had ever been still while awake. Teal'c was, as usual, enthralled with the movie, but did give Daniel an amused raised eyebrow when the little boy cautiously stretched his legs out over Teal'c's lap.

All in all, Jack decided, as he surveyed his crowded couch, it wasn't a bad way to end a rather eventful day.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


End file.
